ADDRESSES 



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DEDICATION 



AGRICULTURAIi BUILDING 



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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



MAY 21, 1901 






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ADDRESSES 

PAGE 

S. ISOBLB KlKG, . . , ... 3 

A. P. Grout, . . . . . ' . 9 

Hon. Hhnry M. Dunlap, . , . . .15 

L. H. Kerrick, . . < . . 20 

T. J. BURRILI,, .. . • . • • • 50 

E. Davenport, , . . , . .39 

Thomas F. Hunt, ,. . . . . .46 



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ADDRESSES 



DEDICATION 



AGRICULTURAL BUILDING 



UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 



MAY 21, 1901 



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ADDRESS 

S. NoBLK King, Blooming-ton. 

Chairman of Legislative Committee of Illinois Farmers' Institute, 1899, offi- 
cially representing the farmers of the State in the third campaign fo^ an 
Agricultural Building. 

Just fifty years ago, at the first farmers' convention held in 
Illinois, the seed was planted whose fruitag-e we behold in the 
beautiful building- which we are now assembled to dedicate. 

This convention was held at Granville, Putnam county, and 
was called, "To take into consideration such measures as mig-ht 
be deemed most expedient to further the interests of the agricul- 
tural community, and particularly to take steps toward the estab- 
lishment of an Agricultural University. " Among the resolutions 
introduced by Professor Jonathan B. Turner, of Jacksonville, 
and passed by the convention were the following : 

Resolved, That we greatly rejoice in the degree of perfection to which our 
various institutions, for the education of our brethren engaged in professional, 
scientific, and literary pursuits, have already attained, and in the mental and 
moral elevation which those institutions have given them, and their conse- 
quent preparation and capacity for the great duties in the spheres of life in 
which they are engaged; and that we will aid, in all ways consistent, for the 
still greater perfection of such institutions. 

Resolved, That as the representatives of the industrial classes, including 
all cultivators of the soil, artisans, mechanics, and merchants, we desire the 
same privileges and advantages for ourselves and our posterity in each of our 
several pursuits and callings as our professional brethren enjoy in theirs, and 
we admit that it is our own fault that we do not also enjoy them. 

Resolved, That, in our opinion, the institutions originally and primarily 
designed to meet the wants of the professional classes as such, can not, in the 
nature of things, meet ours, no more than the institutes we desire to establish 
for ourselves meet theirs ; therefore. 

Resolved, That we take immediate measures for the establishment of a 
University in the State of Illinois, expressly to meet those felt wants of each 
and all the industrial classes of our state. 

At the request of the convention Professor Turner submitted 
a carefully thought out p Ian for an Industrial University for the 
State of Illinois. 



Limitation of time prevents g-iving- this plan in full, but 
extracts from it will show that he had a clear and definite under- 
standing- of the needs of our people. He said, "What do the 
industrial classes want? How can that want be supplied? 

" The first question may be answered in few words. They 
want, and they oug"ht to have, the same facilities for under- 
standing- the true philosophy, the science, and the art of their 
several pursuits (their life business), and of efficiently applying 
existing knowledg-e thereto and widening its domain, which the 
professional classes have long- enjoyed in their pursuits. Their 
first labor is, therefore, to supply a vacuum from fountains 
already full, and bring- the living- waters of knowledg-e within 
their reach. Their second is to help fill the fountains with still 
greater supplies. They desire to depress no institution, no class 
whatever; they only wish to elevate themselves and their pur- 
suits to a position in society to which all men acknowledg-e they 
are justly entitled, and to which they also desire to aspire. How, 
then, can that want be supplied? 

" In answering- this question I shall endeavor to present, 
with all possible frankness and clearness, the outline of impres- 
sions and convictions that have been gradually deepening- in my 
own mind, for the past twenty years, and let them pass for 
whatever the true friends of the cause may think them worth. 
I answer first neg-atively, that this want can not be supplied by 
any of the existing- institutions for the professional classes, nor 
by any incidental appendag-e attached to them as a mere second- 
ary department. We need a university for the industrial classes 
in each of the states, with their consequent subordinate insti- 
tutes and hig-h schools in each of the counties and towns. The 
object of these institutes should be to apply existing- knowledg-e 
directly and efficiently to all practical pursuits and professions 
in life, and to extend the boundaries of our present knowledg-e 
in all possible practical directions." 

Foreseeing- the chang-es that would occur in ag-ricultural 
methods, he went on to say: 

"There should be connected with such an institution, in 
this state, a sufficient quantity of land of variable soils and 
aspect, for all its needful annual experiments and processes in 
the great interests of ag-riculture and horticulture. Building-s 
of appropriate size and construction for all its ordinary and 



special uses; a complete philosophical, chemical, anatomical, and 
industrial apparatus; a g-eneral cabinet, embracing- everything- 
that relates to, illustrates, or facilitates any one of the indus- 
trial arts. To facilitate the increase and practical application 
and diffusion of knowledg-e, the professors should conduct, each 
in his own department, a continual series of annual experiments. 
Let the professors of physiolog-y and entomolog-y be ever abroad 
at the proper seasons, with the needful apparatus for seeing- 
all thing-s visible and invisible, and scrutinizing- the latent 
causes of all those blig-hts, blasts, rots, rusts, and mildews 
which so often destroy the choicest products of industry, and 
thereby impair health, wealth, and comfort of millions of our 
fellow-men. Let the professor of chemistry carefully analyze 
the various soils and products of the state, retain specimens, 
g-ive instructions, and report on their various qualities, adapta- 
tions, and deficiencies. Let similar experiments be made in all 
other interests of ag-riculture and mechanic or chemical art. 
It is believed by many intellig-ent men that from one-third to 
one-half the annual products of this state are annually lost from 
ig-norance on the above topics. And it can scarcely be doubted 
that in a few years the entire cost of the whole institution would 
be annually saved to the state in the above interests alone, aside 
from all its other benefits, intellectual, moral, social, and pecu- 
niary." 

Realizing- the deficiency of available information on these 
subjects, he added: "I should have said, also, that a suitable 
industrial library should be at once procured, did not all the 
world know such a thing- to be impossible, and that one of the 
first and most important duties of the professors of such insti- 
tutions will be to beg-in to create, at this late hour, a proper 
practical literature and series of text books for the industrial 
classes. 

"As reg-ards the professors, they should, of course, not only 
be men of the most eminent, practical ability in their several 
departments, but their connection with the institution should 
be rendered so fixed and stable as to enable them to carry 
throug-h such desig-ns as they may form, or all the peculiar bene- 
fits of the system would be lost." 

That he spoke as a prophet is shown by the following- quo- 
tation: "As matters now are, the world has never adopted any 



ef&cient means for the application and diffusion of even the 
practical knowledge which does exist. True, we have fairly 
g"ot the primer, the spelling- book, and the newspaper abroad 
in the world, and we think that we have done wonders; and so, 
comparatively, we have. But if this is a wonder, there are still 
not only wonders, but, to most minds, inconceivable miracles, 
from new and unknown worlds of lig"ht, soon to break forth 
upon the industrial mind of the world. 

"Here, then, is a general though very incomplete outline of 
what such an institution should endeavor to' become. Let the 
reader contemplate it as it will appear when generations have 
perfected it, in all its magnificence and glory; in its means of 
good toman, to all men of all classes; in its power to evolve 
and diffuse practical knowledge and skill, true taste, love of 
industry, and sound morality, not only through its apparatus, 
experiments, instruction, annual lectures, and reports, but 
through its thousands of graduates, in every pursuit of life, 
teaching and lecturing in all our towns and villages, and then 
let him seriously ask himself: Is not such an object worthy of 
at least an effort, and worthy of a state which God himself, in 
the very act of creation, designed to be the first agricultural 
and commercial state on the face of the globe? 

"Who should set the world so glorious an example of edu- 
cating their sons worthily of their heritage, their duty, and 
their destiny, if not the people of such a state? In our country 
we have no aristocracy, with the inalienable wealth of ages, and 
constant leisure and means to perform all manner of useful exper- 
iments for their own amusement; but we must create our 
nobility for this purpose, as we elect our rulers, from our own 
ranks, to aid and serve, not to domineer over and control us. 
And this done, we will not only beat England, and beat the 
world in yachts and locks and reapers,* but in all else that con- 
tributes to the well being and true glory of man. I maintain 
that, if every farmer's and mechanic's son in this state could 
now visit such an institution but for a single day in the year, 
it would do him more good in arousing and directing the dor- 
mant energies of mind than all the cost incurred, and far more 
good than many a six months of professed study of things he 
never needs and never wants to know." 

The effort of this convention resulted in the land arrant act 



of 1862, whicli provided — " That there should be granted to each 
state 30,000 acres of g-overnment land for every senator and 
representative to which it was entitled according- to the census 
of 1860." 

Among- the conditions were the following-: 

"These colleg-es were for the benefit of agriculture and the 
tnechanic arts. The object of it all was to promote the liberal 
and practical education of the industrial classes. And in 1868 
Illinois established its colleg-e, under the name of the Illinois 
Industrial University." 

Founding 

While no difficulty was experienced in securing- teachers for 
scientific and classical courses it was found almost impossible to 
find teachers or literature for the ag-ricultural department. 
Principles of agricultural science, familiar now to every pro- 
g-ressive farmer, were at that time undiscovered. Under these 
conditions the colleg-e of agriculture had a precarious existence. 

After a struggle of twenty-one years relief came through an 
act of Congress— commonly called the Hatch Act — by which 
$15,000 was appropriated to each of the states to establish 
"Agricultural Experiment Stations," under the direction of the 
College of Agriculture. 

A second measure of relief was found in another act of Con- 
gress by which an appropriation was made for the further endow- 
ment and support of the colleges of agriculture and mechanic 
arts. It was generally supposed that the agricultural college 
of Illinois was then on a basis that would make it a credit to 
the state, but when in February, 1898, the Illinois Farmers' 
Institute held its annual meeting at the University, to the sur- 
prise and disappointment of the farmers present it was found 
that the buildings belonging to the agricultural college con- 
sisted of three wooden barns. The necessity of having a depart- 
ment in our State University in which the sons of farmers, or 
those wishing to fit themselves for agricultural pursuits, could 
have the advantage of scientific instruction equal in every 
respect to the other departments was recognized, and in the fol- 
lowing September, at a meeting of the Board of Directors of 
the Illinois Farmers' Institute, it was determined to ask the 
legislature for an appropriation by which the agricultural col- 



leg-e could be placed on a basis fitting- to the rank which this 
state holds in agricultural productions. 

Accordingly a committee from the State Farmers' Institute 
asked the leg"islature for an appropriation of $150,000 for a 
building- for the college of agriculture. This appropriation 
was readily granted, and we now have the pleasure of seeing 
the building ready for use. Through the united and persistent 
efforts of the farmers of Illinois we have, after thirty years, a 
college of agriculture which we confidently trust will be an 
honor to this great state. Notwithstanding the fact that the 
instructors have been handicapped by want of proper facilities 
and equipment, they have done excellent work, proof of which 
is found in the fitness of graduates to fill responsible positions; 
one, Mr. F. D. Gardner, lately having been appointed by the 
United States government to take charge of the agricultural 
interests in the island of Porto Rico. 

But we must remember that the equipment and instruction 
are only helps to students. Success is dependent upon personal 
effort. 

Already we have been gratified by honors won by students 
of this college at the inter-collegiate live stock judging contest 
at Chicago, and we unhesitatingly predict that the winning of 
the Spoor trophy will be only the beginning of the honors which 
shall be accorded to students of the Illinois College of Agri- 
culture. 



ADDRESS. 



A. P. Grout, Winchester. 

Chairman of Committee from f Uinois Agricultural Associations which drafted 
and secured the passage of the "Rankin Bill," for the "Further equip- 
ment of the College of Agriculture and the extension of the work of the 
Experiment Station." 



This occasion marks the beg-inning- of a new epoch in the 
history of agriculture in Illinois. It is the dawn of a new era 
of improvement and advancement in the opportunities and pro- 
visions made for a hig-her and better education for the people — 
for the tillers of the soil — that g-reat army of workers who are 
developing- the g-reatest of all our industries and who have here- 
tofore been supposed to do business on a very limited amount of 
that which is so essential to success in almost every other calling". 

Through the inspiration of this hour, we are encourag-ed to 
assert that the "world does move" and as an excuse for such 
rashness we have but to point to the magfnificent new building- 
— this day dedicated to ag-riculture— to the education of the boys 
and g-irls of Illinois in that which pertains to the farm and the 
business of farming-. 

That this g-reat boon to agriculture — the g-reatest industry 
of Illinois — has been long- delayed and many years over due, 
cannot be g-ainsaid, but the delay and anxiety incident to its safe 
arrival in port, with a g-oodly carg-o in the shape of the finest 
building- devoted to ag-riculture in the world, and a liberal appro- 
priation for education and investig-ations, and a most able and 
efficient crew of workers and instructors, g-oes very far towards 
mitigating- our complaints and g-ives us g-reat hopes and encour- 
ag-ement for the future. 

Today Illinois is to be congratulated on the advanced posi- 
tion it has taken with reference to ag-ricultural education and 
proud may it be of the rank thus obtained. 

Ag-riculture is the basis of all industry, and education is the 
foundation upon which the superstructure must be reared to 
success. 

The eyes of the people have been opened and their under- 

9 



10 

standing- quickened. Their conception of the business of farm- 
ing- has been broadened and expanded and it now means some- 
things more than just dig-g-ing-, dropping- and covering- the seed 
and g-athering- the harvest. 

The discovery has been made that farming- is a business to 
be studied and learned and that it needs the trained mind as 
much as does any profession that places alphabetical ending-s to 
the names of g-raduates from literary or professional schools. 

It has been aptly said that if John is sent to college to take 
a course in law, medicine or theolog-y, and Tom must farm, that 
it is only fair and just to Tom that he be g-iven a course in agri- 
culture and that he receive the same training- and have the same 
advantag-es for mental discipline and technical information along- 
the line of his life work as his brother. Then will they not 
only be placed on an equality from a business standpoint but 
they will be social equals, for it is not mere work that separates 
men socially it is their mentality. 

Farming- in the past has been larg-ely a matter of brawn but 
today the demand is for more brains. The situation was most 
aptly stated by Ex-Secretary of Agriculture, J. Sterling- Morton 
when he said that " the farmer shall succeed more by his head 
than his hands." It is with pleasure that we can here proclaim 
the fact, and it is a matter of congratulation for the friends of 
agriculture everywhere, that Illinois has at last awakened to a 
realization of the situation — has met the demands of the hour, 
and has made this occasion and these exercises possible, and not 
only possible but an occasion for gratitude and pride to every 
farmer and every one interested in the great fundamental indus- 
try in the grandest agricultural State of the Union. 

The awakening has come and Illinois has gone on record as 
favoring and seeking the highest and -most advanced type of 
agriculture. 

Less than three years ago Illinois stood far down on the list 
of States, as regards her college of agriculture — almost at the 
foot of the class — its instructors discouraged and disheartened — 
its friends and promoters disappointed and chagrined — its bene- 
ficiaries given over to ridicule and skepticism — its management 
doubtful as to the utility of its objects and uncertain and out of 
date as to its value and importance as an educational factor -a 
college in name only — sick unto death — a fit subject for resur- 



11 

rection and new life, when the people, the farmers — represented 
by the Illinois Farmers Institute, came to the rescue, took up 
the fight and carried on the strug-g-le that has ended in the finest 
building- devoted to ag-ric ulture in the world and an agricultural 
colleg-e with more students enrolled during- the present year than 
in all of the previous years of its history combined. 

Having- put hand to the plow, for the advancement of agri- 
cultural education and the building- up of a coUeg-e and experiment 
station that shall be a credit and an honor, as well as a perpet- 
ual benefit to the State, there has been no ^turning- back, but the 
past winter has witnessed the development of a new and hereto- 
fore unknown power for the promotion of public utility, in the 
concerted and harmonious action of the various ag-ricultural org-an- 
izations of the State. The Illinois Live Stock Breeders' Associ- 
ation — the Corn Growers— Corn Breeders and Grain Dealers 
Associations — The Illinois Farmers' Institute — the Horticultural 
Society — the Dairymen's and Sugar Beet Growers' Associations — 
representing- the bone and sinews of the land — the wealth and 
taxpayers of the State — the solid substantial men — the veritable 
salt of the earth, united and determined in the promotion of such 
measures as shall benefit the people and add wealth to the State, 
is a power that cannot be resisted or turned down. 

The times are propitious for the exercise of such a power. 
The people are sick at heart and nauseated with the babbling-s 
of would be politicians and statesmen and the constant parading 
of the great bugbear economy — not for economy's sake but for 
party's sake, when increased educational advantages and indus- 
trial knowledge and investigations for the benefit of the people 
are demanded. 

The time was when the pioneer friends of agriculture enter- 
tained great hopes for the building up of a great industrial institu- 
tion of learning in Illinois, in which instruction in agriculture 
and kindred topics should be made as prominent as the superior 
agricultural advantages of the State demanded. 

They were met with the rebuff, that the people did not want 
it — that they were not asking for it and would not avail them- 
selves of any advantages that might be offered, but above all 
the virtuous politicians and legislators were opposed to taxing 
the dear people to provide the necessary funds. Cheap reputa- 
tion for economy, dearly bought at the price of ignorance, irrep- 



12 

arable loss of fertility, delayed development and wasted oppor- 
tunities. Such are some of the conditions that led the various 
agricultural org-anizations of the State to unite upon one com- 
mon plan and concert of action, and effort, to secure that long- 
delayed recognition for our college of agriculture that shall place 
it in a position to creditably represent Illinois as an educational 
institution and successfully carry out the plans and fulfil the 
hopes of its founders. 

In unity and numbers there is strength. 

The individual farmer acting alone and for himself counts for 
very little in shaping public affairs, but as a member of an organ- 
ized body of intelligent and thinking men, seeking only the best 
interests and v/elfare of all the people, and no private or per- 
sonal gain, is in a position to exert a most powerful and salutary 
influence. 

The agitation of one man or of any number of men not 
working in harmony can avail little, but when united with 
one common object and purpose, and backed by numbers, by 
intelligence, by fixedness of purpose, and by standing as men of 
affairs, the influence wielded is immense. 

Agriculture has never been accorded the position or received 
the recognition from our State government that its magnitude 
and importance entitles it. Our farmers have been slow to assert 
their rights or push their claims. 

Merit and justice have availed little or naught, against 
united and organized effort. 

The development of the past few months with reference to 
the powerful influences that can be exerted for the shaping and 
controlling of public policy by organizations, even of farmers — 
hayseeds if you like — is no less important than the objects 
already accomplished. The latent powers and possibilities of 
the people have been revealed and the feasibility of their em- 
ployment demonstrated. 

Through the influence and by the assistance of the agricul- 
tural organizations, Illinois can today boast of one of the finest 
— best equipped and most thoroughly up-to-date agricultural 
colleges and experiment stations in the world, and if there is 
anything lacking to place them clearly in the lead they have 
only to make their wants known, for those organizations, that 



13 

are of the people and for the people, are enlisted in their service 
and behalf for all time to come. 

The coUeg-e of ag-riculture belong^s to the people and more 
particularly to the farmers of Illinois. It is their special insti- 
tution of learning- and source of inspiration— the place where the 
future husbandmen are to be disciplined and g-rounded in the 
fundamental principles of their calling and fitted for their life 
work. It is the fountain from which may be derived the latest 
information in reg-ard to all farm operations — the place for study 
and investigfation of all farm problems and experiments. 

The farmers of Illinois, throug"h their various organizations 
have assumed the rig-ht to say what kind of an institution it 
shall be, and they have elected to say, that from this time on, 
it shall fitly represent the ag-ricultural interests of Illinois, which 
means that it shall be second to no institution of the kind in the 
land. 

I speak advisedly and know whereof I speak. I am aware 
that I am making- the assertion in the presence of represen- 
tatives of the best ag-ricultural colleg-es in the United States, yet 
I have no hesitancy in saying- to them, do your best — and we 
will g-o you one better. 

It has taken time to educate the farmers of the State to a 
just appreciation of the value of an ag-ricultural education and 
to remove from their minds the old prejudice ag-ainst book farm- 
ing- or scientific farming- or any kind of farming- that savors of 
anything- but brawn and muscle — tireless and never ending- 
drudg-ery, and a reckless waste of soil fertility. 

Ag-ain it has been the province and function of the ag-ri- 
cultural org-anizations to bring- the farmers and the ag-ricultural 
coUeg-e into closer communion and to a better understanding- of 
the wants of the one and the benefits of the other. 

Throug-h the ag-ency and by the efforts of these org-aniza- 
tions and embodying- the ideas and sug-g-estions of Col. Chas. F. 
Mills as expressed in resolutions introduced by him at the last 
meeting of the Live Stock Breeders' Association, it has been 
provided by statute that the work of the Illinois Experiment 
Station shall be carried out on lines to be agreed upon by the 
Dean of the College of Agriculture and committees, represent- 
ing the various branches of agriculture, to be selected by the 



14 

farmers themselves. Thus is the work of the college and station, 
and the wants of the farmer brought into close and intimate 
relationship. 

The association of the leading- farmers of the State and 
those who practice the highest type of agriculture, in organiza- 
tions, for the purpose of leading the farmers of Illinois into 
better and more intelligent method — of inculcating new ideas — 
ideas that will set them to thinking and studying and which 
when applied will result in the most advanced agriculture, is an 
object worthy of the highest commendation. 

The success already achieved and the good accomplished by 
the agricultural organizations of Illinois acting in perfect har- 
mony and unanimity of purpose and for the promotion and 
advancement of agriculture, makes them the pioneers and lead- 
ers in this work. They have demonstrated the influence and 
power of the people — even the farmers, when organized for a 
purpose. They have set the pace for the good work all over the 
land. They have given an impetus to agriculture that nothing 
can check or stay. Illinois may have been a little slow in get- 
ting her machinery in motion, but she is now fully aroused as 
to her opportunities and possibilities. 

With the best natural advantages of soil, climate, and loca- 
cation, with the best equipped college of agriculture in the 
world, backed by the most intelligent and progressive body of 
farmers in the entire country, thoroughly organized and keenly 
alive to every move that may effect their interests, Illinois may 
be expected to forge to the front rank in everything that goes 
to constitute her material well being and the happiness of her 
people. 



ADDRESS 

Hon. Henry M. Dunlap, Savoy. 

Member of the Senate from the thirtieth district and in charge of University 
appropriation bills when the appropriation for the Agricultural Building 
was secured. 

The University of Illinois, known at that time as the Illi- 
nois Industrial University first opened its doors to students in 
1868. In the fall of that year I, a g-reen country boy of fifteen, 
entered the school in pursuit of an agricultural education. The 
school, and I believe I am safe in calling- it simply a school even 
in the presence today of one who was at that time a member of 
its faculty, consisted of a dozen teachers and ninety students. 
The equipment was a few books on "How Crops Grow'' and 
"Chemistry of Soils." 

As I drove through the University Campus this morning on 
my way to this new and grand edifice erected for and to be con- 
secrated to the uses of the Colleg-e of Agriculture, I could not 
help but contrast the present with the past. Then, there was 
the one building which served as a dormitory to house the stu- 
dent body, a few recitation rooms, a room for Chapel exercises 
and a room for a library. No equipment for the chemical 
laboratory, or the eng"ineering" and mechanical departments. — 
The department of science was handsomely furnished with a 
pair of balances, a microscope of limited power, and a few rocks. 
How different this morning- — the old building- to which we have 
referred has disappeared and in its place is Illinois Field; at the 
South end of the old campus is Military Hall; as we proceed 
southward on Burrill Avenue to the rig-ht and left are the Elec- 
trical and Mechanical Eng-ineering shops, the Engineering- build- 
ing proper, the Greenhouses, the President's house and the 
Natural History building, the Chemical building which has 
outlived its usefulness and is to be succeeded by a more modern 
one, the handsome Library building to the right and what is 
now known as the c/is^Main Hall or building directly in our path: 
as we circle this latter to the right or left we come into full view 
of the Experiment Station buildings and barns, Astronomical 

15 



16 

observatory and last but by no means least this g-rand structure 
which we are here today to dedicate to the uses of Illinois' ag-ri- 
culture. In addition to the buildings enumerated each of them 
is filled with apparatus and equipped for instruction and investi- 
g-ation second to none in the United States. 

Now the student body is composed of 1700 students whose 
opportunity for education before entering" the university is almost 
as far in advance of that of the students of the earlier days 
as are the advantag-es now offered by the University superior 
to those of that time. As my memory reverts to that olden 
time I recall that student body as an earnest, rather poorly clad, 
enthusiastic, lively and mischief-loving- band of boys from the 
farm and village. Few were possessed of a hig-h school educa- 
tion, and many minus even that of a g-ood common school. But 
they were earnest intellig-ent and many have made their mark 
in life since the old college days. This demonstrates to my 
mind that if a student possesses capacity for an education it 
matters but little whether he is examined for entrance to the 
University or not. Previous opportunity has much to do with 
whether he can leap a pole set at a certain heig-ht on the field 
of mental gymnastics, but it has but little to co with his after- 
success in University studies. Many g-ood students, eag-er for 
knowledg-e, are frig-htened away because of their inability to 
pass certain requirements of admission set forth in the catalog-. 
Better do away with tests for admission and require more for 
g-raduation. 

Domiciled in the old building- which answered for all the 
departments of a g-reat University, we went forth to study ag-ri- 
culture, "as she was taug-ht." Daily the student body was 
assembled, counted off into squads of ten with a leader for each. 
There with professors to the rig-ht of us, professors to the left 
of us, instructors in front and rear of us, with hoes, rakes, 
wheelbarrows, baskets, spades, and all sorts of ag-ricultural 
implements invented to tickle mother earth into bountiful har- 
vests we went forth to study " that art which doth mend nature," 
for two hours each day. As a member of what the rest of the 
boys dubbed the " infant squad" I went out daily with the mul- 
titude and raked in such crumbs of practical ag-riculture as were 
scattered in my vicinity by the professors of ancient lang-uag-es 
and literature, or mathematics, or the instructor in military 



17 

tactics, all of whom were expected to be equally expert in the 
science of ag-riculture as taug^ht in those days. Since leaving" 
the institution if I have made any success as a farmer it is due 
no doubt to the instruction in practical ag-riculture I received 
from the professor of literature and art of the best manner in 
which a hoe should be held in cutting- down "Jimpson" weeds. 
If I have made a success in horticulture it is due to the instruc- 
tion I received in picking- and packing- tomatoes on the site of 
where the Library Building- now stands under the instruction 
of the professor of horticulture, one who from those primitive 
methods of instruction has advanced to a world-wide reputation 
as a bacteriolog-ist and to the position of dean of the faculty. 
Our instruction in the class room consisted in having- a chapter 
in, " How Crops Grow" read and commented upon by the pro- 
fessor of agriculture. Wearisome hours were spent in this 
unprofitable work in reading- books whose titles I remember if 
I have forg-otten their contents. Thus it was that agriculture 
was taug-ht in "ye" olden time, and the wonder was that ag-ricul- 
tural education did not prove popular with the student. We 
can now see that the fault was not with the wonderful truths 
of nature but with the means and crude methods of their pre- 
sentation. All of this was but a beginning of a better system 
of instruction, a g-roping- after better methods which have since 
taken the place of this njistaken and immature beginning-. All 
of this is not offered in criticism, but as an illustration of what 
has been accomplished in the past third of a century in the 
development of agricultural education. Of the instructors of 
those days be it said that " they did the best they could," and 
the student of that day g-ot the best there was at the time. Some 
of those instructors have since risen to prominence and occupy 
foremost positions of honor in the University — and have reputa- 
tions in their professions that are world-wide. 

Learning- and Labor was the watchword then as now and 
from this humble beginning- has come a system of instruction in 
the class room and field laboratory that has caused the building- 
of this immense structure for carrying forward the cause of agri- 
cultural education. We welcome the dawn of a better day along 
this line, more intellig-ent methods, for investig-ation and instruc- 
tion mean better methods in the treatment of our soils, our crops, 
and our live stock. It means a better home for the farmer, a 



18 

higher standing- in the social and economic life of the farmer 
in his association with people eng-ag-ed in other pursuits. The 
intellig-ent farmer of the future will occupy such position as he 
carves out for himself. The opportunity is his. If he respects 
himself and his calling- others will respect him and it. Today 
we have reached a point where we can see that ag-riculture at 
the University of Illinois is what we make it. If it is popular 
it will be because the instruction is of the best, the instructors 
enthusiastic in their work and the methods of such a nature as 
shall interest and instruct intellig-ent students who "want to 
know" and want to know by the quickest and best route. From 
one or two text books you now have many, from one or two 
instructors you now count them by the dozen, from one room 
shared with other interests you have developed into an immense 
building-, all your own, equipped with the best apparatus for in- 
struction in the land. Ag-ricultural education at the University 
of Illinois has left the past behind and must now press forward 
to the future. The methods of today while perfect as compared 
to early beg-inning-s will be cast aside and reg-arded as obsolete 
in the near future. We cannot stand still, we must press for- 
ward for if we do not we g-o backward. The great agricultural 
interests of Illinois are watching you. New buildings, better 
equipments, improved facilities bring new responsibilities. 
While we have been satisfied in the past with moderate results, 
or none at all, we now expect great things of you. You must 
measure up to a new standard and we have faith that you will 
not be found wanting. If satisfactory results come from money 
wisely expended there is no doubt but what Illinois will take care 
of her own. Let it be remembered that there is much truth in 
the saying from the book of books, '' To those that have shall 
be given and from those who have not shall be taken away." If 
you succeed, much will be added, if you fail, much that you 
have will be taken away. 

Agricultural development in the past twenty-five years has 
come largely through wise legislation. The establishment by 
the General Government of State Universities and State Experi- 
ment Stations throughout the length and breadth of the land 
and the equipment, by the State, of buildings, apparatus, and 
means of instruction has done more in the past twenty-five years 
to bring the science of agriculture to its proper position than is 



19 

g-enerally known. Karnest men and women, Stock Breeders'" 
Associations, Dairymen's Associations, Boards of Agriculture, 
Horticultural Societies, Farmers' Institutes, Poultry Breeders' 
Associations and kindred org-anizations, are in a g-reat measure 
due to appropriations made by the leg-islature of this and other 
States. All of these organizations made strong- by State aid 
have contributed much in securing- proper recognition for agri- 
culture at the hands of the General Assembly of this State in 
the erection and equipment of this grand edifice. 

To those in charge of this great work of agricultural edu- 
cation I wish to extend hearty congratulations, your success in 
the future will depend upon whether you keep close to the peo- 
ple interested — to what they need and require — to those things 
the knowledge of which will make them better farmers and 
better citizens — to those things that are practical as well as 
educational. If you will but carry out in good faith the motto 
of this great University and link " Learning and Labor" in very 
truth, you will meet our expectations. Dignify labor with 
learning and make it intelligent and self-respecting and you 
will bring about a new era in agriculture which will redound 
to the good of the state and of the people. ^ 



ADDRESS 

L. H. Kerrick, Blooming-ton. 

Member Illinois Live Stock Breeders' Association and President Illinois 
Cattle Feeders' Association. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : If I should say 
that agriculture is the first — the g-reatest — the most honorable 
business of the world, I would only be saying- ag-ain what the 
best and wisest men of every ag-e have said before. 

But a g-reat number of people do not so regard ag-riculture; 
they are prone to look upon it as a useful, possibly as a neces- 
sary business, albeit a very simple one suited to the ability and 
uncultivated tastes of plain people. 

Almost any other vocation they esteem more honorable, and 
preferable to tilling- the g-round and tending- the herd. 

This mistaken attitude toward ag-riculture is not universal, 
but it has been and is still far too g-eneral. 

In the common mind ag-riculture is the inferior — other call- 
ing-s the superior. The larg-est case in all history of "cart 
before the horse" is that one wherein so great a part of mankind 
have so persistently put ag-riculture in the rear — in the less hon- 
orable place, while other vocations are put to the front in the 
position of honor. 

In the whole hook-up of our civilization this "wrong- end 
to" position of thing-s is strong-ly in evidence. 

This common under-estimation of ag-riculture, and the com- 
mon aversion or distaste for ag-ricultural pursuits, and the gen- 
eral trend of people and institutions away from the farm and 
farm life, toward professional life or any kind of life but farm 
life, have been long- noted and deplored by observing- and rig-ht- 
thinking- men. 

They have profoundly affected all social, political and eco- 
nomic relations and conditions. They have upset the proper 
balance of city and rural population. There are too few people 
on the farms, too many in the cities. There are not enoug-h 
people on the farm to do the work well, while in the city there 



21 

are two or three times as many as are needed to do the work 
there. There is boundless room and unlimited living- employ- 
ment in the country, while there is crowding- and poverty and 
strife and strikes in the city, for lack of living- employment. 

A few years ag-o there was a g-reat strike in Chicag-o. I do 
not now remember just what precipitated it — no matter, at bot- 
tom the cause of all strikes is too many people needing- the same 
job. During- this particular strike the storm for a while centered 
about some g-rain elevators. Thousands of men threatened to 
pull down or break in the elevators and help themselves to the 
wheat. At that tim6 those elevators were filled with the cheap- 
est wheat that was ever raised in the world; but there were so 
many people in Chicag-o who had no business there — no living- 
business, that they could not all earn enoug-h to buy enoug-h to 
eat of the cheapest bread the world ever had. 

This pulling- away from the farms could not afiFect every 
other condition and institution and leave our g-reatest institu- 
tion, our schools, unaffected. 

And what a country of schools is this! Who can count our 
schoola? They are like the stars which no man can number. 

But our schools, big-, little and medium, public and private, 
have been dominated in their org-anization and in their teaching- 
by this same anything--but-farming- spirit. 

They have taught our farmers' boys and g-irls about every- 
thing- under the sun except those very thing's they need and 
must know to make their work and business attractive, satisfy- 
ing-, successful. 

The attitude of the schools toward ag-riculture has been 
something- like this: — Anybody can farm. You do not have to 
learn to farm. You just know it without having- to learn. There 
is not much to learn about it anyway. There is no science, no 
art about farming-. You do not g-o to school to learn how to 
farm better; you do not have to. You g-o to school to learn how 
to do something- else, so you may not have to farm. Only those 
people who can not do something- else, work at farming-. Strang-e! 
All this is passing strange, since if we but think for a moment 
we know that had it not been for the farming which went before 
them, never a book would have been written, never a school 
house built on the earth. 

Agriculture is the science of science, the art of arts. 



22 

When every other art and science shall have been thought 
and wroug-ht out to its utmost limit, the science and practice of 
agriculture will still present boundless unexplored fields for 
work and research and reward, wherein every faculty of mind 
and body with which man is endowed may find the fullest, the 
most satisfying-, the most inspiring exercise and employment. 

Do not misunderstand me, I say nothing against our schools. 
They are good. They do their work well. That such a system 
of public and private schools as ours, with its mighty teaching 
force and its vast material equipment should have been evolved 
in so short a period of time, is a matter to excite our wonder 
and compel our highest admiration. 

For zeal, for self-sacrifice, for untiring labors in behalf of 
our youth, that they become intelligent worthy men and women 
and patriotic citizens, I say of our whole great army of teachers, 
from the presidents of our universities and colleges to the hum- 
bler but not less useful district school teachers, there live no 
better, nobler, more helpful men and women than they. 

But just as earnestly I say that our schools and our school 
teachers have been nearly all looking one way, and that way 
has been away from the farm. Is it anybody's fault? No; it 
is everybody's fault. It is the colossal fault of our time and our 
generation, to underestimate the dignity, the beauty, the profit, 
and the honor of farming and farm life. 

This wrong attitude of our schools toward agriculture has 
of course tended strongly to draw young people from farm life 
to professional life. 

The schools have been turning out too many doctors, too 
many lawyers, too many professors. There is no need for them 
all, but they have been taken too often from the farm where 
there is need of them. The professors have rather the best of 
it because they can go on helping to turn out more doctors and 
more lawyers and more professors. 

To say the so-called learned professions are full, pressed 
down and running over, is only hinting at their actual condition. 

Something over a year ago, I read in a Chicago paper an 
account of graduating exercises which took place at the Chicago 
University. Let me quote you verbatim a part of President 
Harper's address to the graduates, as it was reported. 

"You who are now entering the world will find that poverty will be the 



23 

strongest opponent to overcome. You who are entering life as lawyers need 
only look at the papers today to find that the average lawyer does not earn 
his salt. Those who will become physicians will find that their only compan- 
ion for a few years to come will be the wolf at the door; while those who go 
forth to teach, need only to witness the struggles of the school teachers in this 
city. The school board is beset with howls and wails for an increase of sal- 
aries." 

This in that great and rich and growing- metropolis, Chi- 
cago, a city affording- as g-reat or greater and more opportunities 
for men and women trained for the learned professions than any 
other city ; yet even there the prospect held out to those gradu- 
ates by the president was years of starvation. If some other 
fellows had not the streng-th to fast as long" as these graduates, 
then they mig-ht eventually get the other fellows places. 

The first duty of an educated able bodied man is to make his 
own living-. 

The man who is not in some way, at some point doing an 
amount of the world's necessary work equal to that required for 
the support of one man, is a burden on society. 

Do any of you fear that President Draper or Dean Daven- 
port will ever say to a class g-raduating- from this ag-ricultural 
colleg-e: Gentlemen: — You are g-oing out to the farms. You 
have not mastered the whole of agricultural science, that will 
not be done by any living- or yet to live, but you have done your 
work well in the college and you are well equipped for your bus- 
iness; however, I feel oblig-ed to say to you that poverty will be 
the strong-est opponent you will have to overcome. The average 
farmer is not earning- his salt — that is, for his personal consump- 
tion mind you, let alone the cattle and horse critters. The only 
companion you will have for some years to come will be the wolf 
at the door. 

I just as much expect to read of such a speech having- been 
made here, to a class graduating- from this ag-ricultural coUeg-e, 
as I expect to find myself tomorrow morning, sitting- on some 
distant star reading- that last night the cables of gravitation 
parted down here and the whole planetary outfit fell to everlast- 
ing smash-up. 

Thirty-four years ago there was organized here an Indus- 
trial University. Not a university of the general sort but of 
another sort, a new kind of university. A university differing 
in its organization — differing in its leading studies and in its 



24 

aims and purposes from those already established ia many parts 
of the country. The courses of study in the colleg-es and univer- 
sities existing- when this new university was organized were 
adapted only to fit men for the so-called learned professions, law, 
medicine, etc. In this new university the leading- studies were 
those related to agriculture and the mechanic arts. Whereas 
the other universities tended to withdraw their students from 
the pursuits of industry, this new university would aim by link- 
ing learning more closely to labor and by bringing the light of 
science more fully to the aid of the productive arts, to enamor 
the sons and daughters of the farmer and the artisan with their 
pursuits. There is no law in Illinois establishing a university 
of the g-eneral or older sort. There never has been such a law. 
There is a law establishing an industrial university. If this 
university ha? any legal existence or standing, it is as an indus- 
trial university. By the intention of its founders, by its organic 
law, by its lawfully authorized courses of study, by the will of 
the people of Illinois it is an industrial university, not less, not 
more. 

In his address delivered on the occasion of the inauguration 
of the Illinois Industrial University — that great man, Dr. Newton 
Bateman said : 

"What then is the grand distinguishing feature, purpose, hope of this 
university ? In my view it is to form a closer alliance between labor and 
learning— between science and the manual arts, between man and nature* 
between the human soul and God, as seen and revealed through His works. 

"It is to endeavor so to wed the intellect and hearts of the students we 
educate, to the matchless attractions of rural and industrial life, that they will 
with their whole soul prefer and choose that life and consecrate to it the 
results of skill and power that may here be gained. These I hold to be the 
aims of this university. And we hope to attain them, not by a less expensive 
and thorough course of instruction than is given in other universities, but by a 
somewhat different course and more especially by emphasizing from the begin- 
ning to the end those studies and sciences which look away from the literary 
and professi^tial life and toward the pursuits of the agriculturist and the 
artisan." 

Congress in 1862 made a liberal grant of land scrip to each 
State of the Union for the endowment, support and maintenance 
of at least one college in the several States accepting the bene- 
fits of the grant, whose leading object should be to teach 
branches of learning as related to agriculture and the mechanic 
arts, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and 



25 

includiag- military tactics, in order to promote the liberal and 
practical education of the industrial classes in the several pur- 
suits and professions of life. 

The act of cong-ress was the orig-in of our university. The 
legislature of Illinois by an act providing- for the org-anization 
and maintenance of the Illinois Industrial University re-enacted 
the act of cong-ress in identical words. 

The State of Illinois mig-ht have organized and provided for 
the maintenance of a university of the established or g-eneral 
sort, having- colleg-es of law, medicine, etc., including a coUeg-e 
of ag-riculture and mechanic arts, but she did not, and has not. 
The perfectly obvious intent of the leg-islature was to establish 
a peculiar university, contra-distinguished from that other kind 
in that its leading- studies should relate to agriculture and the 
mechanic arts, other classical and scientific studies being per- 
missible when and to the extent that they mig-ht subserve the 
sing-le great purpose, namely, the thorough and liberal and com- 
plete education of the farmer and the artisan; this end and pur- 
pose being accomplished, the whole purpose of the University 
is accomplished. It was deemed by the founders that there were 
enough of the universities of the other kind, and that more were 
not needed. If no need in '67 of establishing a university of the 
general sort, what need now can there be when within the bor- 
ders of our state there is building by private beneficence, with- 
out charge to any tax payer, what will with scarcely a doubt 
become the most completely equipped and the most comprehen- 
sive in its round of learning and the most richly endowed uni- 
versity in the world. 

About three years ago, when this University had been here 
more than thirty years; when in all there had been expended 
upon it $4,000,000 or $5,000,000, the Illinois Farmers' Institute 
appointed a committee to visit the University and see how it 
was faring with agriculture here. • 

The committee made its visit and investigation and reported 
that they found an agricultural plant worth about $7,000 — 
$7,000 ! Shades of the founders ! Excuse us farmers for what 
we could not help and forgive us for what we could have helped 
but did not. 

But, my friends, I doubt very much if Turner and Bateman 
and Gregory and their co-laborers would have any harsh words 



26 

for us if they could communicate with us. They saw how the 
educational wind was blowing- from the farm to the town, from 
ag-ricultural to professional life, before they went. It was only 
a breeze in their day, but maybe from their spirit homes they 
have seen that breeze increase to a blizzard, sweeping- thing's 
toward the town and toward the occupations of the town, as 
that other kind of blizzard sweeps the snow of the plain upon 
the hamlet in its path. 

I am ready to believe that those good m_en if they thoug-ht 
we could hear them, instead of chiding- us, would say, boys, you 
"did nobly" even to hold down your little cow barns in such a 
g-ust. 

I have not much to say about the $7,000 plant. When the 
farmers heard about it, a movement to rig-ht thing's, g-eneral, 
intellig-ent, 'determined, irresistible, was begun. This great 
agricultural building is one of the fruits of that movement. 
The generous appropriation by the last legislature for better 
equipment of the plant, and for other purposes of the college is 
another fruit of that movement. There will be other, perennial 
crops of good fruit which that movement will bear. 

Farmers are conservative ; they are not easily moved indi- 
vidually and are harder to move en masse, but when they move 
other things will be moved that need moving. If the University 
ship has been turned from its right course, little or much, or if 
it has been turned right about and headed the wrong way, the 
farmers will surely swing her round again and send her on her 
appointed way. They know her mission ; it was clearly mapped 
out from the beginning, and knowing it they will see to it that 
she have a chance to accomplish that mission. 

Lest some might think otherwise, let me say I have not 
spoken a word in any spirit of complaining — not a word intended 
as an arraignment of anybody for what may have been done or 
left undone in or concerning this University. 

There has been lack of information and consequent misun- 
derstanding and disagreement among the people as to the true 
and lawful character, scope and purpose of our University. I 
have deemed it my right, perhaps my duty as a citizen and 
farmer, to set forth here those purposes. 

And let no one infer from any utterance of mine that I take 
an unfavorable or gloomy view of matters and events in general. 



27 

I believe that the preponderance of human intention and human 
effort is toward the g-ood. I believe that the prevailing- course 
and tendency of human institutions is toward the better. They 
may travel sometimes obliquely — zigzag — wrong end foremost — 
up side down — or even at times seem to go backwards, but alto- 
gether they get onward and upward. 

Good things — better things — the best things come not at 
once, but by evolution, step by step from imperfection to 
excellence. 

Agriculture is the peculiar science ; in its beginnings simple 
indeed — simplest of all ; in its higher development we shall see 
it growing complex, comprehensive, drawing to its aid, assim- 
ilating and rendering subservient all sciences and becoming in 
its fullest development the master science. 

Since the children of men however simple and unlearned 
must live and maintain themselves on the earth, and since they 
could live only upon the products of the tilled field, it was 
necessary that they be able to provide the means of sustaining 
life by the simplest methods of field culture. 

That kind providence which cares for all living things, so 
ordered his laws that the field by rude and simple means could 
be made to yield the necessities of life. 

But since we live by agriculture, we have been wont to look 
upon it simply as a means of living. He who finds in his voca- 
tion only a means of living, becomes a ioyless drudge and his 
vocation stagnant drudgery. 

May we not see in this the reason why myriads have tired 
of farming and have t urned away from the farm to other pur- 
suits and professions ? And in this turning away of so many 
from the farm to other pursuits and professions, may we not find 
and see the cause of that marvelous development of other arts 
and sciences which so distinguishes our time ? I do not doubt 
it. The excessive interest in these, the excessive number 
engaged in them, and the excess of energy expended upon them, 
could have no other result but to push their development to an 
amazing degree of perfection. 

But now on every hand we see the signs of another turning, 
a returning to agricultural pursuits. Other sciences and other 
arts are ripe now to serve their highest purpose in the develop- 
ment of the master science, agriculture. The professions are 



28 

full— crowded as we have seen. They no longer pay, to put it 
short, but that is not all nor most important ; men and women 
conscious of power to aid in the world's needed work and 
inspired by sublime desire and ambition to add by their labors 
something- to the world's comfort, happiness and betterment, 
disdain to waste their trained powers where not needed. If 
place, success and competence are to be gained for themselves, 
in professional life, it must too often come by displacing and 
defeating others. 

With the conditions of the unskilled laborer and the artisan 
in the city we are familiar. Living employment is uncertain ; 
there are too many. The mechanic, for self preservation is 
compelled to limit the number of apprentices in his craft, even 
to the exclusion of his own son. Professional men are hesitating 
to bring up their sons to their own calling. How is it with 
trade and commerce ? There is war between individuals and 
coperation for trade, of which there is not enough to go around? 
and nations that once fought for liberty and honor are now ready 
to fight for trade. 

The way out of it all is to the farm. To the farm is the 
place to go now, and to the farm is the thing to do. People see 
it ; not only plain men now, but schooled, educated, learned men 
see it and the more they know the better they see it. Necessity 
may be the ointment that is opening their eyes, but they see it 
all the same. To my young friends who question me as to the 
most promising field for effort now, I answer without hesitation, 
the corn field. 

We are about to return — we are returning to agriculture. 
We are taking another step in the evolution of better things for 
mankind. 

To the half employed, to the disappointed, discontented, 
striving, struggling millions in other over crowded pursuits^ 
agriculture says, come unto me and I will give you employment; 
I will give you food and clothing ; I will give you homes ; I will 
give you contentment and honor ; I will give you peace. 

But we are returning to a new agriculture, an agriculture 
lighted and glorified by science. To the new agriculture the 
agricultural college and experiment station will be the main 
gateway. 



29 

The Agricultural Colleg-e and Experiment Station is one of 
the wisest conceptions of this or of any age. 

It should not be regarded as merely a help to agriculture or 
an aid, however valuable; such an estimate falls far short of 
the truth. It is a necessary, an indispensable agent in the 
development of a better and more profitable and more engaging 
agriculture. The farmer can not experiment profitably. Agri- 
cultural experiments for the most part require some years for 
their completion. There must be parallel experiments under 
varying conditions. Exact records must be preserved. Expen- 
sive apparatus is often required. I need not recount the obsta- 
cles to successful experimentation by individual farmers; they 
are numerous and practically insurmountable. 

If for no other reason, a college or association of some kind 
is necessary, because experiments if left dependent upon the life, 
health and inclination of private persons, would almost cer- 
tainly fail. 

Although comparatively new institutions, colleges of agri- 
culture have abundantly proved their value. 

There is but one opinion among those acquainted with their 
work; they must be maintained. Any farmer and all farmers 
who will watch the work done in these institutions and who will 
apply to their own work what may be applicable, will soon be 
their enthusiastic friends. 

A reasonable amount of public money judiciously expended 
•on our agriculture college will return an hundred fold to the 
common good. 

A wise public policy will surely give liberal support to the 
agricultural college and experiment station. 

We are met here to dedicate this great building, the largest 
agricultural college building, I believe, in the world. It is con- 
sistent — we are the greatest agricultural community, and this 
Tjuilding stands in the center of the largest tract of the most 
productive land comprised in any single State. It will be well 
■equipped. We have here a corps of instructors, many pf them 
already renowned for eminent services to agriculture, all are 
learned and skillful in the art, and devoted to it. 

To the great art — the greatest, we dedicate this splendid 
"building. 



ADDRESS 

Thomas J. Burrill, ph. d.,, ll. d., University, s 
Vice-President University of Illinois and Dean of the General Faculty. 



Some Early Inside History and its Lessons 
Agricultural education and the direct application of science 
to the affairs of practical agriculture have come up in our coun- 
try through great tribulations. A word now at the formal dedi- 
cation of these magnificent buildings, erected in the interests of 
agricultural arts and sciences, and for the educational benefit of 
people having to do with these developing departments of skill 
and learning, — a word uttered here under the stimulating- con- 
ditions and with this augury of marvelous things to come, — a 
word by way of contrast upon the early struggles connected with 
and inside of our own University, can not be without its lessons 
upon this occasion. It is quite impossible to enter here upon a 
history of agriculture in the University of Illinois, but attention 
may be solicited to a few facts in that history. 

In the light of the discussions which led to the donation 
of land scrip by Congress, and the founding- of the institution 
by the State, any one may clearly read in the wording of the 
acts by which these measures were accomplished, the intent and 
purpose to make ag-riculture and the matters inherently pertain- 
ing thereto, the leading subjects of instruction and investiga- 
tion in the new institutions. Mr, Morrill himself, whether as 
representative or senator? rarely spoke of anything- else. In all 
his congressional speeches he but once emphasized the import- 
ance of mechanics and the need of aid in mechanical pursuits. 
He did dwell at length upon the necessity of special education 
for rural people and upon the crying- need of better methods in 
farm management. So the land-grant colleges were most fre- 
quently spoken of as ag-ricultural colleges. In Illinois, previous 
to the passage of the founding- act by the state legislature, 
hardly any other name was in use, and afterward for some years 
the term agricultural college was more commonly heard as 
applied to this institution, as it then existed, than was the legal 

30 



31 

title, — the Illinois Industrial University. The people of Cham- 
paig-n county were the earliest, and, as the result proved, the 
most insistent bidders to secure the location of the new state 
institution, but they thought of it and popularly called it the 
agricultural colleg-e. It is certainly true that a few persons and 
those who were most influential in determining- the name and 
character of that which they instituted took a wider outlook and 
a better vision of the development which was sure to ensue. 
With them the name University was not a misapplication, and 
that which they understood by the modifying- term "industrial" 
was in proper keeping- with the best interpretation of the entire 
movement — a movement which account s in a considerable part 
for the splendid achievements of the later years. But when the 
trustees first met it was not strang-e that many, no doubt a 
majority of them, still thoug-ht of the charg-e newly placed under 
their care as an ag-ricultural colleg-e. Here ag-ain the influence 
of a few dominating- minds, and notably among- them that of 
the first Reg-ent, or President, is to be perceived. The minority, 
as determined by count, extended the plans for the new org-ani- 
zation much beyond those which the majority would have 
adopted. No one, however, thoug-ht of displacing- from the head 
and front of the list the ag-ricultural interests. All were in 
hearty agreement in g-iving- these chief place in the new insti- 
tution, to be followed by others as possibilities permitted. In 
the first scheme of org-anization fifteen professorships were 
recommended, and the first one in the list, as it was adopted, 
is that of practical and theoretical ag-riculture, followed in order 
by those of horticulture, analytical and practical mechanics, 
military tactics and engineering-, civil engineering, etc. In this 
list the professorship of ancient languages takes the thirteenth 
place, and that of mental and moral philosophy the fifteenth 
place. 

When appointments came to be considered it was natural, 
under the circumstances just mentioned, that some one should 
be first looked for to fill the professorship of agriculture. That 
this appointment, together with that for horticulture, w ere not 
made before others, was not the fault of those upon whom 
devolved the responsibility of securing a faculty. Three men 
for other departments were elected before a selection was made 
for the place constantly first in consideration and deemed by all 



32 

to be first in importance. A search for a man proved futile. It 
was currently said at the time that there was but one professor 
of agriculture, and that there was no other man fit for such pro- 
fessorship in America. However, something- must be done. All 
felt that action of some kind should not be delayed, and on the 
very day of the inaugural exercises, when the doors of the insti- 
tution were first officially thrown open, Willard F. Bliss, of 
Nokomis, Illinois, was elected professor of agriculture. At the 
time, he was the owner and manager of a large farm near the 
town just named; he was a graduate of Yale College, as that 
famous American center of learning was then entitled; he had 
traveled abroad, and had pretty well in command the Latin,. 
Greek, and French languages. 

There were at the time in the country some men famed for 
their attainments in science, but not one of these had been 
trained in his specialty in an educational institution, though 
certain of their number had gained a start through the meager 
instruction then offered at the principal seats of higher education 
in this country and abroad. Darwin's Origin of Species had 
been published almost a decade before the time now spoken of, 
but outside of theology and the realm of theoretical science, 
little attention had been paid to the doctrines therein advanced. 
It certainly would not have been considered a matter to his 
credit if a candidate for a professorship in agriculture was 
known to have accepted these doctrines as a basis for his inves- 
tigations and for his instruction. Indeed almost the only science 
thought to be of real worth to a man in the position named was 
chemistry. To his Latin and Greek and French languages and 
to his practical acquaintance with rural affairs the world of 
knowledge designated chemistry would have been considered a 
valuable addition. Baron von Liebig was at the splendid pin- 
nacle of his well-earned fame, and the renown of his epoch- 
making researches was as great in America as in Europe. Had 
Mr. Bliss or any one else proposed to qualify himself for teach- 
ing the scientific agriculture he no doubt would have endeavored 
to gain first a sitting at the feet of this highly revered master, 
tho ugh we now know he would have learned facts which were 
not facts, and would have had cause subsequently to unlearn a 
not inconsiderable amount of the coveted information so gained. 

Professor Bliss took up the task assigned him with much 



33 

hesitation. He knew the situation well enoug-h to appre- 
ciate the difficulties in the way. He was by no means one of 
those who dared to tread where ang-els feared to g"o. Actual 
contact with the matters involved did not decrease the recog-ni- 
tion of obstacles. The affairs of his own farm did not prosper 
in his absence, and at the end of his first year he considered it 
necessary to return to the less exacting- if humbler duties at his 
own home, whence he has not since been tempted away. 

On November 27, 1867, Jonathan Periam was appointed 
head farmer, the first reg-ular employe in the earliest instituted 
office of the University. He served in this capacity until March, 
1869. During- this time there arose some discussion as to the 
scope of his duties, resulting- in adding- to his title that of super- 
intendent of practical ag-riculture, and he was told to report di- 
rectly to the committee on agriculture of the Board. But his did 
not prove to be a path of roses, and he resigned after a service 
of one year a,nd four months. Even in farm management there 
was too little unanimity of ideas to make life agreeable to one 
under employment, with several persons esteeming- themselves 
higher in authority but differing- with each other in views. 

In June, 1870, during- the day upon which the resignation of 
Professor Bliss was accepted, the appointment of Dr. Manly 
Miles was made as professor of agriculture with the understand- 
ing- that he should serve during the fall and winter months, thus 
dividing- equally his time between the Michig-an Agricultural 
College and this institution. No one else in America at this 
time enjoyed anything comparable with Dr. Miles in the public 
estimation of competency to g-ive instruction in scientific ag-ri- 
culture. He it was who had been called the only professor of 
the subject in the country. The trustees and others considered 
themselves in great g-ood fortune when it seemed he was to lead 
the way out of the dilemma in which they found themselves 
placed. But it was not to be. Arrangements failed at the 
Michig-an end of the line, and it was not until five years subse- 
quently that he finally resigned at Lansing- to accept here the 
double duty of professor of agriculture and of agricultural chem- 
istry. The latter part of the title was added in g-ood part be- 
cause he was to draw two salaries compared with those usually 
paid. This time he entered upon service here with anticipations, 
at least on the part of others, of g-reat accomplishments. The 



34 

perplexing^, disappointing-, discourag-ing-, and disagreeing- condi- 
tion of thing-s in connection with the department and its work 
was to come to an end, and there was a justifiable basis for great 
hope for the future. No other action by the authorities could 
have been taken which seemed so full of promise, so big- in anti 
cipated results. Alas ! The transplantation did not succeed. 
Perhaps the roots were down too deep to permit the severance ; 
perhaps the new soil was ill-suited to development of this second 
foot-hold. There was no lack in vigor, however. New g-rowth 
was apparent enough in many ways, yet all ceased at the end of 
one year. This latter was larg-ely due to radical differences of 
opinion as to what should constitute the curriculum of study in 
the University g-enerally as well as to what should be attempted 
in the ag-ricultural department itself. There was, in a word, 
too little real knowledge and too much fanciful theorizing- for 
any substantial unity of purpose or ag-reement in procedure. 
The storm ended by the professor's withdrawal. 

When in 1870 or 1871 it came to be understood that Dr. 
Miles could not accept his first eng-ag-ement strenuous efforts 
were made to fill the place. All this came to nothing-. There 
was really no one to appoint with any confidence in the outcome. 
Then it was said we must make a professor. Fortunately in- 
struction in the biolog-ical and physical sciences g-ained rapidly 
in the new state institutions. Laboratories were equipped as 
never before in our land. Laboratory methods soon larg-ely sup- 
plemented or supplanted the lecture system of instruction in 
science. Students beg-an to deal with thing's rather than with 
printed or spoken words. The chang-e in educational procedure 
amounted almost to a revolution due not alone to the founding- 
of the land g-rant colleg-es, but carried forward by them with un- 
equaled spirit and energ-y. The making of an ag-ricultural pro- 
fessor was nearer possible than ever it had been before. The 
first class g-raduated from the Illinois Industrial University in 
1872. One of the brig-htest of its members was made an assist- 
ant in the chemical laboratory, and during- his first year of ser- 
vice was selected in effect for the ag-ricultural position. He went 
to Kurope for a year's study shaped entirely towards his antici- 
pated duty, and in 1874 was made instructor in ag-ricultural 
chemistry. Perhaps personal reasons in this case more than in 
any other caused the termination of the eng-ag-ement after the 



35 

apparently established period of one year. It was at the close 
of this service that Dr. Miles entered upon his work. In the 
meantime the affairs of practical agriculture, as the phrase was, ' 
had been entrusted to the head farmer and to one or another em- 
ployed as temporary director of field experiments. The Reg-ent 
and various members of the faculty g-ave assistance, such as it 
was, in class instruction. 

In 1876 George K. Morrow, then professor of agriculture in 
the Iowa Agricultural Colleg-e, was elected to the chair in this 
institution, and in one respect, but by no means in all related 
things, the fateful troubles were ended. He retained his office 
during- eig-hteen consecutive years, and was dean of the college 
from the time of its organization in 1878. So far as this early 
history reaches and with all it includes, there is no other name 
so important for what it recalls, so lustrous for what it denotes. 
In his memory the hall in which we meet is appropriately, and, 
let us trust, significantly named. Today as we triumphantly 
dedicate these building-s, we bring also our loving tributes and 
our laden testimonials to the service-rendered memory of this 
service-giving man. He was singularly g^ifted in many ways, 
and these included qualifications needful in the arduous and dif- 
ficult work which he undertook to perform. He harmonized 
opinions, co-ordinated interests, gained the confidence and good 
will of those in authority and of others with whom he worked. 
Himself an editor in his earlier career, he secured a favorable 
attitude on the part of the'agricultural press. He was unequaled 
at the time as a lecturer at home and abroad upon agricultural 
themes, and his devotion to his subject was limitless in time and 
boundless in endeavor. He, too, however, had his professional 
troubles. He often went from his office at the close of the day 
with a heavy heart. His tired brain too frequently suggested : 
What is the use? Why prolong- the contest? But the next 
morning he took up again his task with spirit and with continu- 
ous hope of ultimate success. There were encouragements as 
well as discouragements, but we are not attempting- a complete 
story. At the close of his long- career he could not say that in 
the actual and plainly observable condition of things his expec- 
tations had been justified or his favorable predictions fulfilled. 

Turning- now for a moment to horticulture in this rapid 
review, similar statements might in part be made. After two 



36 

years of inquiry the second professorship in the original list had 
not been filled. Here ag-ain no one in our entire country was 
really qualified for the proposed duties. In the emerg-ency the 
trustees turned to a young- assistant professor of natural history in 
charg-e of a department so named and which had been org-anized 
during- the first year, and in March, 1870, he was made profes- 
sor of botany and horticulture. That he continues in service 
was due, without doubt, to the connections with the first subject 
in this title. The horticultural duties were addenda. After 
the class-room exercises were over for the day, drains could be 
located, g^rounds laid out, trees planted, fruits g-athered, plant 
diseases studied, etc. It is almost certain no man could have 
long- sustained himself in these practical affairs taken by them- 
selves. The story would have been that already told. 

Such in brief and in a rather one-sided account is the early 
history of agriculture in this institution in which the subject and 
the workers now have so prominent a part. Let us see if we can 
find the causes for the slow and dearly-boug-ht development. 

In the first place we must understand that the history here 
is in no wise peculiar, neither can failure be attributed to any 
want of earnestness of purpose or honesty of mind on the part of 
authorities. What was true here was essentially the case else- 
where. As we have seen, g-reat thing-s were anticipated; agri- 
culture and agricultural people were to be vastly and at once 
benefited by the new institutions. Nothing else was to take 
precedence under any consideration. This first, other things 
secondary. The disappointment was attributable to causes such 
as the following: 

1. Too much was expected. Too great things were to be ac- 
complished. The public mind has been aroused to a condition of 
great expectancy without having concerned itself with the means 
of accomplishment or even without any well-founded reasons 
upon which the effects should follow. The inevitable result was 
disappointment and a disposition to blame somebody for it. 

2. The ends sought were vaguely perceived. Everybody 
thought he knew what was needed to be done and perhaps how 
to do it, but the thinking was superficial; it was theoretical in 
the main and took color from the circumstances and character- 
istics of the individual. There was therefore clash of opinion 
with no standard of comparison or valuation. 



37 

3. Science had not been adjusted to the elucidation of the 
complex problems involved. The complexity and difficulty of 
these problems vc^ere rarely recog-nized. It had been proclaimed 
and believed that a chemical analysis of soil w^ould infallibly 
indicate what crops would succeed thereon, or what definite sub- 
stance or substances must be added to make certain crops a cer- 
tain success. Almost no attention had been g-iven the biolog-ical 
factors. As is the case with all those partially informed the men 
of science were over confident. Their emphatic statements did 
not find support in practice, and science itself was discredited. 
The idea that a professor could teach agriculture was often held 
to be ridiculous, and there was some basis for this holding-. In a 
word science and practice were too far apart and each esteemed 
the other too little. 

4. There was woeful want of understanding- in reg-ard to 
what one man could and could not do. For a score of years only 
one department was thought of by either trustees or by pro- 
fessors. Each institution had filled its complement of officers 
with one professor of ag-riculture. He and his superiors thoug-ht 
it was his duty to develop and teach the whole subject, or rather 
all the subjects sug-g-ested by the name. Superficiality prevailed 
but no one recog-nized it. We see it now well enoug-h, but 
throug-h advantag-es not then enjoyed. We will do well if with 
all our helps the ag-ricultural departments are not too open still 
to this criticism. 

5. No one beg-an to realize the unavoidable cost of ag-ricul- 
tural education given in anything- like a truly sensible way. A 
lecture room with a desk, some chairs or settees (not very many) , 
a few charts and pictures hung- upon the walls, — these consti- 
tuted a professor's equipment aside from the thing-s to be found 
in the barn or in the fields. Is it a wonder that students were 
few and that enthusiasm was at a low ebb ? Chemical and 
physical laboratories were known to need larg-e and varied sup- 
plies of apparatus and materials, but that equivalent facilities 
should be furnished the teacher of ag-riculture no one, not even 
the latter surmised. 

6. Without further enumeration it may be said that the 
ag-ricultural education of the first quarter of a century in our 
land-g-rant colleg-es was poor and halting- because it was before 
its time. The inertia of the ages was upon it. There was no 



38 

self-g-eneration of power. A second birth was needed here as 
elsewhere ; a birth of the spirit and of the understanding". 

Let us be thankful today for the tribulations of the past. 
Let us square ourselves to the new conditions and by the new 
interpretations of requirements and of possibilities. Let us g"ive 
due credit to those who, working- in the dark and under restraints 
and limitations made possible the dawning" light we enjoy and 
straightened the path in which our feet may tread. 



ADDRESS 

E. Davenport, m.agr., University. 

Dean of the College of Agriculture and Director of the Agricultural 

Experiment Station. 



Upon the front of this building- are two inscriptions that 
fairly indicate what the structure stands for. One is from the 
pen of President Draper — "The wealth of Illinois is in her soil, 
and her streng-th lies in its intelligent development." Here is a 
great economic truth that lies at the very foundation of the 
future of Illinois, and one whose whole sig-nificance it is the 
business of this building- and all it contains to assiduously propa- 
g-ate among- the people. 

The other inscription is one of the many new truths 
announced by Professor Turner, whose statesman-like conception 
of the meaning- and possibilities of hig-her education has not 
only g-iven us the land g-rant colleg-es in all the states but has 
introduced some new educational standards among- the people. 
This sentiment of Professor Turner's upon our cornice — "Indus- 
trial education prepares the way for a millennium of labor" — 
serves to remind us that the material resources of a people will 
never be fully developed without the aid of trained intellig-ence; 
and further, that the man who develops these resources and 
provides the material without which not only our civilization but 
our lives would g-o out to-day — that this man whom the world 
has neg-lected because he labored with his hands — that he is a 
man whom God has made like other men to look upward, and 
who in this country at least has made himself a citizen. 

These sentiments mean that no people can become great 
without reg-ard to the fruits of labor. They mean, too, that 
labor can not be effective until it is trained; that no laborer can 
develop and use the resources of a country as they should be 
developed and used until he is intellig-ent; and they mean further, 
that the man himself need not be offered a living- sacrifice to the 
labor necessary to bestow upon the material world to make it 
habitable for civilized man reaching- out after the infinite. These 
sentiments mean, too, that we shall all g-o along- tog-ether, if we 

39 



40 

be wise, as we travel upward. They mean that further prog-ress 
in material thing-s and the later steps in civilization can be 
attained only through the highest intelligence in all lines of 
human activity, and the man who offers that intelligence need 
not be sacrificed; that he can be something- more than a step- 
ping stone by which the few enjoy what other men have done. 
They mean that the masses of men representing- all needful ele- 
ments of our civilization shall improve themselves and their 
activities tog-ether, and that when any of these fail for any 
cause then the limits of our civilization are reached. 

All this means, if it means anything, that every needful 
thing- must be propagated, and it means, too, that a virile peo- 
ple in an advancing civilization will propagate needful things, 
both in the field of utility and of beauty. 

The last half century has seen and heard so much of "indus- 
trial education," of "new standards," of "utility," of "the new 
education," of "material development," and of "commercial 
supremacy" — it has seen and heard so much of these, and it has 
seen so much of the strivings after higher education, of people 
who had heretofore been content with none, that a feeling of 
alarm akin to a nervous chill has swept the ranks of the educa- 
tional world, and there be those who can not understand this 
latter day development of industrial education, especially the 
agricultural. They look upon it as dangerous in one way or 
another, and feel a nameless fear that it means an overthrowing 
of standards like the falling of the ancient altars at Stonehenge, 
perhaps. 

Let me say to these good people, be not disturbed. This is 
not revolution; it is evolution. Those who are interested in the 
propagation of higher standards for industry and industrial peo- 
ple understand very well that our civilization does not rest upon 
industry alone, and, in laboring never so determinedly for the 
development of our agriculture and the betterment of the agri- 
cultural people, they would subtract nothing from the develop- 
ment of every other needful element of our civilization. They 
believe most fervently that trained industry provides the 
strength of a people as does art or science its refinement, and 
that no matter what the exigencies of civilization, no man should 
be sacrificed to his calling or to any other man. They believe 
that any people that neglects any of its industries, — mining, 



41 

manufacturing-, commerce or agriculture, or fails to secure their 
hig-hest development, sacrifices by so much its strength and its 
endurance, and they understand perfectly, too. —these people 
who are engag"ed in the development of our industries — that 
any nation or any people that closes its eyes to the teaching's of 
history is blinded; and that if it neg-lects art as expressed in 
literature, painting, sculpture or music, it loses by that much 
the refinement it might enjoy, They understand that industry 
without refinement leads to sturdy barbarism, and they believe 
that refinement without trained industry leads to letharg-j and 
decay. Therefore it is dangerous for a civilized people to neg- 
lect any industry, art, or accomplishment, as it is to pursue a 
policy that will permit one class to do all the thinking and com- 
pel another to perform all the labor ; and therefore, this great 
movement for the betterment of agriculture, not peculiar to Illi- 
nois, but taking- possession of all our people everywhere, is not 
revolutionary. It subtracts nothing from anything-. If it erects 
some new standards it pulls no others down. If it does empha- 
size the importance of educated industry, it detracts nothing- 
from art and refinement. If it would increase the wealth of the 
country it only provides the means for a yet hig-her civilization, 
and if it be wisely used it will come. If it adds to the material 
strength of the people it detracts nothing- from their refinement; 
for a people, like a man, may be both powerful and refined. 
Therefore whatever new problems arise for adjustment incident 
to the g-reat movement for industrial education they should be 
adjusted with confident courage, for we need have no apprehen- 
sion as to final results, because the movement is natural and in 
the best interests of all classes of people. 

I am inclined to think, however, that the rise and progress 
of industrial education is bringing into the world of thought a 
new standard of life for all men. Once it was taught^that the 
highest life consisted in withdrawing from one's fellows, and 
spending his days in contemplation— in thinking for thought's 
sake, — in leading a life which begins and ends in the individual, 
an ever hopeless attempt to solve the infinite. I am not sure but 
industrial education is introducing into the world the gospel of 
"doing things" — that every man must contribute something in 
the way of both thought and action to the times in which he 
lives, and that instead of spending his life wrapped in contem- 



42 

plation attempting- to solve for himself the infinite, he is to 
assiduously help his neig^hbors solve the finite. I should be 
proud to be convinced that this comparatively new standard has 
come to us, partly at least by the avenue of industrial education. 

This all reminds us that there is a distinction between the 
individual and the mass; and between the man who is taug-ht 
and the thing- that is taug-ht him. Now an educational policy 
may be very g-ood for the individual and very bad for the mass. 
It may be so framed and conducted as to g-ive certain few indi- 
viduals a tremendous advantag-e over their fellows even to the 
extent of larg-ely freeing- them from the responsibilities of life, 
thus laying- additional burdens upon the less favored ones. It 
is an open question of the older educational ideals which did not 
tend to foster this condition of thing-s. However that may be, 
we are glad to hail a gospel, an educational doctrine, to the 
effect that education frees the individual from nothing-, but lays 
upon him greater responsibilities towards the community and 
the generation in which he lives. 

Like all other new movements this one of industrial educa- 
tion was oblig-ed to defend itself in the early days when almost 
nobody believed in its potency for anything- but evil. That very 
defense has erected some new standards g-ood for all men to 
observe. Industrial education could not at first be defended on 
the plea of popular demand because those individuals to be most 
directly benefited — the farmers — seemed not to desire it, but 
rather to poke fun at it. This drove its advocates out upon 
higher ground; viz., that ag-riculture and industry in g-eneral 
should be studied, taug-ht, and developed from the standpoint of 
public policy, and because their development was needed as a 
natural and necessary condition to coming- civilization, and 
without reg-ard as to whether or not it was desired by individuals. 

The battle was foug-ht out and won upon this ground and 
we all have been taug-ht a lesson — a g-reat educational truth it 
seems to me — viz., that institutions of learning- and research exist 
primarily, not for the benefit of particular individuals, but that 
they exist primarily in order to develop certain g-reat subjects 
as, ag-riculture, eng-ineering-, chemistry, economics, literature, 
music, and to stimulate their growth among- the people. Under 
this view teachers and investig-ators both in colleg-e and without 



43 

are the leaders in this development, and the students are the 
means for its propag"ation among the people. 

Under this thoug-ht, this building- and the college and ex- 
periment station that it shelters are devoted primarily to the 
development of agriculture in Illinois, and they may do anything 
and should do anything in harmony with other interests that 
will contribute to that development. The students, therefore, — 
much as we love them — are not educated so much for their own 
sake as that they shall go out and carry into their generation 
the best that the present has to give. They have no business to 
consider what is here learned and taught as personl property to 
be hidden in a napkin or to be used only for personal enjoyment 
or advantage. They must take it and use it for the benefit of 
all men and for the development of our industries. 

It is to be said however, for the college and for the business 
of instruction in general that no method of propagating truth 
among the people is half so effective as that which goes out 
from the class room and the laboratory in the minds and hearts 
of young men and women. These go out and begin new lives, 
and because it is easier to adjust than readjust, so it is that 
after experiment stations and scientists have discovered all that 
is to be known of agricultural truth and the last bulletin and 
scientific article have been published on the morning of the 
millennium — then will it be seen that after all the greatest work 
was instruction and the most powerful agents of progress are 
well trained young men and women. 

This building on the hill and what it shelters are by no 
means the only agents for agricultural development in Illinois. 
There is besides, the public press, a wide spread correspondence 
and an interested and progressive constituency. If in the old 
days farmers were slow to believe in such institutions and were 
prone to overestimate their own experience, that day has passed. 
If it be true yet in any state or section, it is most emphatically 
not true in Illinois today. 

Upon the farms of this state there are hundreds, yes, 
thousands of farmers, each meeting both success and failure, 
who are determined that the agriculture of this State shall 
advance; that these lands which have not properly responded to 
our efforts shall produce; that those which have produced shall 
yield more, and that we shall so learn to manage these lands 



44 

that we hold, not in fee simple but in trust for those who shall 
come after us — that we shall so treat them that their productive 
capacity shall not g-row less but more— to the end that our 
children's children's children shall not curse us in our graves, 
but shall bless us for leaving- behind us and to their g-eneration 
material wealth enoug-h to make it possible for them to be civil- 
ized, for have you not thoug-ht that man may so treat the earth 
as to starve his own descendants? I say to this audience and to 
all men that the determination of these men to develop agricul- 
tural education in Illinois is unalterable; and the energ^y with 
which they will prosecute it in their g-eneration is akin to the 
energ-y of despair in the hopeless and the energ-y of faith in the 
martyr. These represent the same interests that a g-eneration 
ago were indifferent to ag-ricultural education and development. 
But they have seen and felt both the necessities and the possi- 
bilities of education in ag-riculture and they have looked ahead 
down the g-enerations and have seen what these things mean in 
the last analysis; not only that, but thinking- men of all calling-s 
recognize and lend sympathy and assistance to this movement 
for a better agriculture. And this is why the agricultural 
development of Illinois is to be represented, not by the building 
we now dedicate, nor the college and station that it shelters, but 
by the men who own and occupy the lands of the state and by 
those other men in many callings who understand what agricul- 
tural development means. This is why the movement will 
endure. 

These have been the men who have helped the University 
to do this thing — to build the largest sing-le building devoted to 
agriculture in the world, and without them it could not have 
been done. Thirty-three 3"ears ago a college of agriculture was 
established here. It languished until the time came when these 
men representing the interests it was designed primarily to 
benefit, took hold of the matter. It did not thrive until then — 
it could not have thriven before. 

In 1895 the trustees asked for $40,000 for a dairy building. 
It was scarcely considered. Two years later they asked for 
$80,000 for an agricultural building. It failed, and many 
farmers and farmers' ins titutes opposed it. Two years later, 
and for the third time, the trustees asked for an agricultural 
building, but fixed the amount at $100,000. The farmers 



45 

ofi&cially endorsed it in the State Institute and a campaig-n of 
education commenced throug"hout the leng-th and breadth of the 
State By careful study it became evident that $100,000 would 
not be sufficient to provide what was needed and the estimate 
was raised to $150,000 during the campaign. It was supported 
by every ag-ricultural org-anization of the state— I had almost 
said by every farmer and citizen of the state — and passed the 
General Assembly without amendment and with only one dis- 
senting- vote. 

When this vote was taken we had twenty-one reg-ular and 
twenty-twcr short course students. The next year, althoug-h we 
abolished the short course, we reg-istered a total of ninety, and 
this year a total of one hundred and fifty -seven. 

Then agfain, these same farmers in the name of their various 
org-anizations have just closed a campaig-n for increasing- the 
funds of the experiment station by over $50,000 annually. This 
with the asking-s of the trustees for fur nishing- the building- and 
for increased support of the colleg-e, provides a fund for the col- 
leg-e and station not exceeded by that of any single institution 
devoted to ag-riculture in the world . 

Wherefore, then we should all rejoice this day. What has 
been done we have done tog-ether — for nobody's g-ood but that of 
Illinois. The University stands not only for industry but for all 
thing-s needful and contemporaneous with this increase in ag-ri- 
cultural funds it has received the larg-est appropriation in its 
history, showing- that Illinois is larg-e enoug-h of pocket and of 
heart so that one thing- need not feed off another, but that she 
is both ready and willing to do well whatever needs to be done 
for the good of all her interests and the benefit of all her citizens. 



ADDRESS 
THE OPPORTUNITY IN AGRICULTURE. 



Thomas F. Hunt, M. S. 
Dean of the College of Agriculture and Domestic Science, Ohio State 

University. 



The history of education, for, in, and by ag-riculture is 
always a fascinating- subject and it is difficult to resist its recital. 
Its history is no part of the theme for this afternoon, however, 
and, moreover, it has frequently been set forth at leng-th by far 
more potent pens. If this address contains aught of history, it 
will be because of its bearing- upon the present and the future. 

The discussions of this subject forty or fifty years ag-omake 
it perfectly clear that the early ag^itators were concerned in edu- 
cation for agriculture rather than in agriculture or hy agricul- 
ture. They were concerned in the education of all the industrial 
classes along lines which would make them the most effective 
" in the several pursuits and occupations of life" because they 
believed that the welfare of the State depended upon the educa- 
tion of the masses. This is, indeed, the only warrant for the 
taxation of the people for the personal benefit of the individual. 
We vote bread and meat only to the physically, mentally, or 
morally incompetent. We vote a free education in order to 
give every one a reasonable opportunity to earn his bread and 
meat, because the welfare of the State demands it. This prop- 
osition is too well understood to need more than the merest 
statement. The magnificent series of buildings, which we are 
called upon to dedicate today, the most extensive in the world 
for the purposes for which they are intended, is evidence suf- 
ficient, if evidence were needed, that this proposition has lost 
none of its force in the nearly thirty-nine years that have elapsed 
since the Congress of the United States, amid the most terrific 
civil conflict, passed the epoch making bill which prepared the 
way for the Arts of Peace. I wish here to congratulate my 
alma mater and all its officers who have promoted this under- 
taking upon their splendid achievement and to thank the people 

46 



47 

of the ^reat Kmpire State of Illinois who have so generously 
voted money, not only in their own interests but in the interest 
of mankind for all time to come. 

The farmer's need of education is a theme which I delig-ht to 
discuss. It is the proposition that if a man is g"oing- to be a 
farmer, he of all men should have a thorough school training-. 
The operations of the banker, the merchant, the manufacturer, 
the lawyer, the public speaker even, teach them much that they 
need to know to be successful. They are taught to do by the 
doing". What does the spreading of manure teach a man con- 
cerning the chemistry of fertilizers? What does the planting 
and reaping of corn teach a man concerning the laws of plant- 
growing? 

The ordinary operations of the farm do not teach the 
farmer the most important facts concerning his business. In 
order to get that information most necessary to his highest suc- 
cess the knowledge obtained from farming must be supplemented 
from some other source. The more you look at this question, 
the more avenues from which you approach it, the stronger it 
will appeal to you. 

This proposition was defended from this platform nearly 
seventeen years ago when the last act in securing a first degree 
from these profes — No, I forget. It was not these professors. 
It was only seventeen years ago, — only a few years ago, surely, — 
but what changes ! Since then, many a platform has been occu- 
pied with moderate composure, but here is but a beardless boy, 
standing with sinking heart before his fellow students, and as he 
walks out and makes his bow to President Peabody, he casts a 
hurried glance down the row with that feeling of student rev- 
erence for his professors that should he live till he was three score 
and ten, he could not out live. But I have been dreaming. Let 
me look again. Morrow, Snyder, Crawford, Prentice, 
McMurtrie, Roos, Pickard, who said, " Miss Pierce, can you 
pierce that?" ''No," flashed back instantly the reply, " But I 
C2in pick hard at it." These are no longer present. Some have 
already gone to a deserved rest. But have they all gone?. Let 
me look again. No, a few remain. Dear men and true, — men 
who have seen this great University grow from a tiny seedling 
into a sturdy and ever expanding oak, — still hold honored posi- 
tions and influence in the faculty and affectionate places in the 



48 

hearts of the alumni. Great, indeed, have been the chang-es in 
seventeen years. Then there were less than four hundred stu. 
dents; now more than two thousand five hundred. Then the 
faculty consisted of twenty-eight persons; now the instructional 
force consists of two hundred and fifty-eig-ht persons. Then 
there were buildings devoted to instructional purposes worth 
with equipment less than $350,000; now they are valued at one 
and one-third million dollars. The total annual income from 
all sources was then less than $100,000; now it is nearly half a 
million dollars, the climax being- capped by the larg-est appro- 
priation ever made by a leg-islature at one time for an educa- 
tional institution. 

I beg- your pardon, ladies and gentlemen, for having- allowed 
my personal feeling-s towards the old student home to lead me 
thus from the subject. The farmer's need of education is not, 
however, to be the theme this afternoon. 

A passing- thoug-ht can not be resisted concerning- that 
ancient arg-ument in favor of the farm, viz., that the farm has 
been the source of presidents, statesmen, diplomats, eminent 
lawyers, doctors, ministers, ad jinitum^ ad naiiseimi. The log-ic 
of this is that the farm is a g-ood place to be born if you only 
get away soon enoug-h. This arg-ument says in effect that the 
farm is a valuable breeding- g-round to furnish strong-, healthy, 
vigorous stock for the nation, the most able and the most intel- 
lectual of which are to be selected to supply the professions and 
manage the business interests of our cities, while the rest may 
go to the devil or become farmers. Apparently, in the minds of 
many, the two destinies are identical. I have no quarrel with 
this argument when it is stated frankly, but I submit it is not 
calculated to convince a young man that agriculture offers him 
an opportunity for a worthy career. 

The thesis of this address is, Does agriculture (using the 
term in its broadest and proper sense) offer an opportunity 
worthy of an able, intellectual, ambitious young man? Can 
there be found therein a career worthy of an educated, broad- 
minded man? 

Last year a young man graduated from the course in Agri- 
culture. He happened to be unusually young. He was but 
twenty. Almost immediately upon graduation he was appointed 
to a cadetship at West Point through the courtesy of Senators 



49 

Hanna and Foraker. He was an able, intellectual, cultured stu- 
dent of excellent spirit, manner and address. He has had, as I 
believe, a thoroug-h, sound education. He was such a young- 
man as any home or colleg"e mig-ht be proud to send into the 
world. As it happened, he had during- his colleg-e course been 
very much interested in the military drill, having- occupied about 
every position in the battalion from private to adjutant, and 
had, in the absence of the commandant, during- the Spanish- 
American war, had charg-e of the battalion and taug-ht military 
tactics. Suddenly he had two careers open to him. If he chose 
the one, the g-overnment would see to it that he suffered no real 
pecuniary need throug-hout his life time. His abilities are such 
as reasonably to assure promotion. He mig-ht even hope to 
occupy a position in the army second only to the President of 
the United States. If he chose the other career, and at that 
moment there was no immediate opportunity open to him, he 
must seek a career, where there was the ever present but ever 
unpleasant duty of providing- bread ind meat. He was up 
against (this is not slang-) one of the g-reat problems of life. 
He, of course, soug'ht advice, but, I believe, he decided finally 
for himself. He does not lack in bravery, and I do not believe 
he had any special sentiment concerning- the ag-ricultural life. 
He had to decide between the art of war and the art of peace. 
He chose the art of peace. Did he choose wisely? It may be 
of some sig-nificance to note here that he subsequently entered 
the g-overnment service, but it was in the Department of Ag-ri- 
culture and not in the Department of War. 

This, then, shall be the theme for a brief time this after- 
noon, — Does the opportunity in Ag-riculture furnish a worthy 
career? I shall discuss it in two aspects, viz., the character of 
the education, which a course in ag-riculture offers and the 
opportunity for one so educated. Nor is the subject to be treated 
from the ag-reeableness of the occupation. The bea uty of sitting- 
under your own vine and fig- tree shall not enter into this dis- 
cussion. No one will claim that the occupation of the President 
of the United States is a particularly pleasant one, but every 
man is ready and anxious to admit, if not by word at least by 
deed, that the position is worthy of the ambition of any Ameri- 
can born citizen. Whether a man likes to wade around in the 
mud in the pure air rather than to walk on the carpet in the 



50 

foul atmosphere (both literally and fig-urativeiy) of a criminal 
court room, is largely a matter of personal preference. It is a 
case of head vs. feet. 1, each year, become more g-ratified that 
I did not choose the profession of law, because of my personal 
dislike for many of the circumstances surrounding^ a law practice, 
but that is not sufficient reason for others to avoid it, and every 
one must recog"nize that the practice of law offers to an 
ambitious, educated, hig-h minded young- man an opportunity for 
a worthy career. 

When these institutions first offered themselves to the public 
as ag^ricultural colleg-es, a few men in their faculties did a little 
teaching- for ag-riculture, still less teaching in agriculture, and 
g-enerally no teaching- at all by ag-riculture. This is not strange. 
The few noble spirits, who kept alive the fires that burned so 
feebly during- the first twenty years, and who essayed to teach 
the application of the sciences to ag-riculture, had not had, 
except in rare instances, any training- in the sciences which they 
soug-ht to apply, and, except in rare instances ag-ain, did the 
men who taught the sciences perceive their relation to agriculture 
and sometimes cared less. 

Some exceptions, however, are worthy of note. The first 
experiment stations, established throug-h the zeal and self sacri- 
fice of a small g-roup of men, were the means of instructing and 
inspiring- a few young- men, who have become the leaders of 
scientific thought as it relates to agriculture. These men may 
not have all been thoroug-hly practical men but they were deeply 
trained in the sciences relating- to ag-riculture. On the other 
hand, there were a few of our colleg-es that had the g-ood fortune 
to secure as their so-called professor of ag-riculture, men of un- 
usual vig-or of mind, enthusiasm for the cause, and withal a wide 
knowledge of ag-riculture. In these institutions, a few young- 
men have been trained, which, meeting- with their more scientifi- 
cally but less practically trained brethren, have tog-ether helped 
to control the destiny of this cause during- the past twenty years. 

It was not, however, until ten years ag-o, which happens to 
be coincidental with the passag-e of the second Morrill Act, that 
the teachers of what may be called technical ag-riculture were at 
all g-enerally men who had been trained in the sciences underly- 
ing- ag-riculture. These men, be it observed, had received their 
training- in technical ag-riculture from men who had, themselves, 



51 

for the most part, bad no scientific training-. What I would like 
to have the thoug-htful young- man see at this point is that most 
of the men, who have been trained in agriculture bj those who 
have themselves had a colleg-e training- in ag-riculture, have not 
been out of colleg-e more than five or six years and are, for the 
most part, less than thirty years of ag-e. Boards of Trustees are 
remorseless and, perhaps, properly so, and men of my training- 
will soon be no longer needed. 

It is fully recog-nized that the professional field in ag-riculture 
is a distinctly limited one and it would, indeed, be a sad com- 
mentary upon the cause, if it was the only worthy field in ag-ri- 
culture open to a young- man. But this much may be said that 
in the past ten years, while I have been expecting- to see this 
theoretically limited field supplied, the opportunities have con- 
stantly increased in number and improved in character. An 
illustration from a sing-Je State university having- eig-hteen 
courses of study which lead to a deg-ree, may be permitted. 
Twenty of its g-raduates during- the last ten years are now in 
colleg-e positions other than their alma mater. Seven of these are 
from the course in ag-riculture. There has not been a year in 
tjae past five years that thoroug-hly trained and thoroug-hly able 
ag-riculturists have not been in demand for positions requiring- 
the hig-hest capabilities. 

Teachers are the first necessity of a school of any kind, but 
only second to the necessity of teachers is the necessity for some- 
thing- to teach. The sciences have made g-reat strides since 1870, 
especially the biolog-ical sciences. Chemistry had, indeed, a 
thoroug-hly established standing- and the professor of natural 
science did the rest. However, mathematics and physics are 
not mechanics or eng-ineering; physiolog-y is not medicine; and 
chemistry is not agriculture, however fundamental these may be 
to the callings in question. 

What did we know about dairying in 1870 that we now 
teach? Principally that cows would produce milk in the summer 
time if the pastures were good; that if we stirred some myster- 
ious thing that came on the top of it, called cream, it would turn 
into butter; or if we added the juices of a calf's stomach to the 
milk, it would turn into cheese, — all of which had been known 
for four thousand years. Dairying is now a specialized industry 



52 

requiring- a special education and training- to succeed in it. 
Among- men of business judg-ment none others need apply. 

In an article on "Harvest Implements" in Morton's Cyclo- 
pedia of Agriculture, published in 1871, the writer states that 
"Notwithstanding- all the ing-enuity, however, that has hitherto 
been applied to this subject, reaping- has been and no doubt for 
many years, as we have said, will continue to be a manual oper- 
ation." The writer then proceeds to describe the various forms 
of sickles with which it is proper to cut g-rain. This article was 
not written by an ig-noramus. Morton's Cyclopedia of Ag-ricul- 
ture was as standard in the field of ag-riculture as the Century 
Dictionary is in the field of letters. It is true that America had 
known something- of the reaping- machines for fifteen years, but 
the self binder was yet a fig-ment of the dreams of a few inven- 
tors. What this means may, perhaps, be best emphasized by 
the startling- but nevertheless true statement that if the small 
g-rains of the crop of 1901 in the United States had to be reaped 
by the method so g-ravely described by our Eng-lish authority, it 
would take the combined efforts of every man of military ag-e in 
the United States three weeks to accomplish the task. This has 
an important bearing- upon what is to follow. Here emphasis is 
laid upon the fact that rural eng-in eering- is a different problem 
from what it was thirty years ag-o. 

Take an illustration from the field of animal industry that 
is just now for special reasons a very attractive line of work. In 
1870, there were common in the United States one recog-nized 
breed of horses, three breeds of cattle, two or three breeds of 
swine, and, perhaps, five breeds of sheep. Some other breeds of 
live stock had been introduced, but they were practically 
unknown. At present, we have at least eleven recog-nized breeds 
of horses, not including- ponies, seventeen breeds of cattle, eleven 
breeds of swine, and fourteen breeds of sheep, with all of which 
a man must be more or less familiar before he can lay any claim 
to being- an expert in the field of animal industry. 

In the field of applied sciences, the chang-es have been no 
less profound. When the men who are now teaching- the science 
of ag-riculture were in colleg-e, it was taug-ht as a demonstrated 
scientific truth that mankind, in the no very distant future, must 
disappear from the face of the g-lobe for lack of nitrog-en in the 
soil. We know better now. So completely has this better 



53 

knowledge been accepted and acted upon in agricultural opera- 
tions that we have almost forgotten that we ever thought dif- 
ferently. 

The year the speake r entered college, Professor Burrill dis- 
covered the cause of pear blight. Pear blight still continues on 
its way but how immensely has the horizon of our knowledge 
concerning plant and animal diseases widened. Not only have 
agricultural and horticultural operations been greatly modified 
but the practice of human and veterinary medicine have been 
revolutionized, and with it all, the mind of the human race seems 
to have expanded; reason has taken the place of superstitution. 

The establishment in 1888 of experiment stations in each of 
the states has furnished a fountain from which is flowing knowl- 
edge recognized to be of the highest importance to agriculture. 
Knowledge which now has some semblance at least of scientific 
accuracy. Knowledge which is as accurate as can be expected 
when we consider the great difficulty of the subject. The effect 
of this progress of which but a hint has been given is that little 
that is taught today of technical agriculture was taught fifteen 
years ago. 

It is necessary to remember that the old type of classical 
college required only a building of moderate dimensions, and a 
department therein for equipment, a desk, a few chairs, a pointer, 
some chalk, and a number of erasers. Thirty years ago, the 
necessity jf equipment for the teaching of the pure sciences was 
but little recognized. The necessity for a fairly equipped chem- 
ical laboratory was indeed understood. A herbarium for the 
botanist, a few snakes and other specimens in alcohol for the 
zoologist, a number of cork lined boxes for the entomologist, a 
small collection of minerals and stones for the geologist, a mani- 
kin and a few bones for the physiologist was about all that was 
thought necessary. When it came to the department of agricul- 
ture, a few samples of grain, mostly worm eaten, a collection of 
patent office models, mostly of machines, which had never been 
used because of their visionary character, a few framed prints 
portraying animals of impossible conformation or in impossible 
attitudes, and a so-called model farm was considered the sine 
que non for an equipment. A properly equipped farm is, indeed, 
a desirable adjunct to an ideally equipped college of agriculture, 
but other things were more essential. A farm, however, to 



54 

serve the hig-hest purpose of instruction to say nothing- of ex- 
perimentation cannot be made a model for a farmer to follow any- 
more than a university machine shop can be made a model for a 
shoe factory. 

Just as the teaching- of the sciences has been found more ex- 
pensive than the teaching- of classics, so the teaching- of the ap- 
plied sciences has been found more expensive than the teaching- 
of abstract science. And of all applied sciences, the teaching- of 
agriculture has been found to be vastly the most expensive and 
it must, in the nature of the case, continue so. It is only during- 
the past decade that the movement for the proper equipment of 
the colleges of ag-riculture has taken tang-ible form. The great 
state of Illinois has felt this movement and has come bravely to 
the front with the structures we are dedicating- today, and with 
the equipment so soon promised will be second to none in the 
Union. 

It may not be out of place here to inquire why ag-riculture 
has been slow in coming to its own. It is because of the diffi- 
culty of the problems involved. The political economist has 
long- ago divided people engag-ed in g-ainful occupations into four 
or five classes. Leaving aside the work of the serving- class, the 
work of the world is divided into three classes, viz., chang-es in 
substance or natural products from which results ag-riculture 
and mining; chang-es of form, from Wjhich results manufactur- 
ing; and chang-e of place, from which results trading- and com- 
merce. Did it ever occur to you that of all these g-reat classes, 
agriculture alone deals with living- thing's? Why has the cause 
of pear blight and the metabolism of nitrog-en in the clover plant 
been so long hidden from the human understanding-? It was 
first necessary to invent a hig-h power microscope. 

Like the water that flows to the sea, civilization has pro- 
ceeded along- lines of least resistance. The science of ag-ricul- 
ture, dealing- as it does with living- thing-s, has, because of the 
difficulty of understanding- the processes of life, lag-g-ed behind 
those occupations depending- for their best development upon a 
knowledg-e of the physical sciences. The science of ag-riculture 
will not reach its highest development until the problem of life 
has been solved. No man dare prophesy the heights which it 
may yet attain. 

The study of ag-riculture, therefore, presents problems 



55 

worthy of the most g-if ted and hig-hly educated young- man. A 
four-years' course in agriculture, or in any of its specialized 
branches, today g"ives a man not only a training- ycr ag-riculture 
but in and by ag-riculture. It g-ives him such a professional 
training- as to fit him as a bread winner of the hig-hest type. 
When he has finished, he is fitted to do something- somebody 
wants done. He has not only received a theoretical knowledg-e 
of the laws of nature, but such a practical knowledg-e of their 
application that he can successfully use them on the farm, in the 
dairy, in the orchard, or in the g-arden. Not only are the hand 
and the eye trained, but throug-h the hand and eye the mind is 
trained. In other words, the course in ag-riculture offers a sound 
education. Its g-raduates are not only educated farmers, but 
educated men. 

I am not ready to assert that the mental drill received from 
instruction by technical ag-riculture, as at present taug-ht, is 
equal to that received by the study of Greek, Latin, or Calculus. 
It is freely recog-nized that the colleg-es of agriculture have larg-e 
opportunities in this reg-ard. The men who are teaching- these 
subjects have had literally to dig- their subject out of the g-round 
and have, in some cases, been so absorbed in acquiring- knowl- 
edg-e that they have neg-lected the pedag^og-ic methods of impart- 
ing- it. But I am ready to assert that the young- men who are 
now being- g-raduated from the courses in ag-riculture are, let the 
reasons be what they may, the peers of the graduates of any of 
the courses of our land g-rant colleges and their subsequent 
work is showing- them to be such. 

I am conscious that I have used a g-reat deal of time in order 
to say to the young- man, that if you want a sound education, if 
you want an education that will fit you for a useful life, if you 
want an education worthy of the mental capacity of an Edison 
or a Pasteur, you can find it in a course in ag-riculture. If it 
will not serve your purpose in after life, do not take it. There 
are plenty of other courses that will g-ive you as g-ood a training-. 
The variety of courses in the state universities is such as to suit 
the most fastidious. But if you are interested in the problems 
underlying- agriculture, if your artistic instinct leads you to pre- 
fer producing-, living, pulsating models of plants and animals, 
instead of reproducing their counterfeit on canvas, if your scien- 
tific bent is towards organic rather than metallurgic chemistry. 



56 

for botany rather than physics, if your business ability lies in 
trading- in stock rather than in trading- in stocks, if your lo-^re for 
excitement is better satisfied in the show ring than in the court 
room, you need not avoid a course in agriculture, because it 
lacks a training worthy of the highest mind. The Dean of your 
General Faculty years ag-o said that the digestive juice of edu- 
cation is interest. The fact that almost without exception those 
who have studied agriculture have been interested, not to say 
enthusiastic, has, in no small measure, added to their success. 

But granting all this, after the education is acquired, will 
it produce bread and meat, and if so, is it sordid ? Does it pre- 
sent an opportunity for a career, or will the possessors remain 
hewers of wood and drawers of water ? 

This is just as good a place as any to behead once more that 
hydra-headed monster, which asserts that agricultural colleges 
educate boys away from the farm. I happen to have the statis- 
tics concerning the alumni of a college of agriculture and of its 
ex-students since 1892. These statistics concern 399 young men 
who have spent more or less time in studying agriculture. The 
occupation of 60 is unknown. One hundred and seventy-four are 
farmers, gardeners, and dairymen, 48 are creamery operators, 
butter, and cheese makers, S are farm superintendents or em- 
ployees, 28 are employees of colleges or stations or of the United 
States Department of Agriculture, 3 are editors of agricultural 
newspapers, and 19 are students in other colleg-es. The total num- 
ber in all other occupations is 59. Of the 320 men who have 
settled occupation, 261 or 82 per cent., are eng-aged in agricult- 
ural pursuits. I am repeating no set phrase, when I say that 
those who have become farmers are not only g-enerally succeed- 
ing- from a pecuniary standpoint but they are becoming leaders 
in the intellectual, social, and political life of their respective 
communities. While a course in agriculture is not to be recom- 
mended as a means of political prosperity, yet it is probably quite 
within the truth to say that there is no surer road to political 
leadership even than success upon the farm by capable, broad- 
minded, well educated men. Three of the farmers in the last 
Illinois legislature were trained in agriculture at the University 
of Illinois and their alma mater has had no reason to be ashamed 
of them. 

Particularly is success coming to those who have completed a 



57 

four-year course. Many young- men have taken a one or two-year 
course in agriculture and in some institutions a winter term course 
and they have g-one to farming- and have had a fair measure 
of success depending- much, of course, upon their previous 
training-. Many earnest and successful men have been trained 
in this way. There is, however, no g-reater error than to be- 
lieve that if a man is g"oing- to farm a one or two-year's course is 
sufficient, while if he is g-oing- to be a teacher or an experimen- 
ter, he must have a thoroug-h undergraduate and post-graduate 
training. Farming, in its several branches, is no exception to 
the rule that the greater the ability, the greater the success. 
Neither is there any question that many lines of farming now 
offer opportunities for the talented. The fact is that a training 
cannot be too severe for the man who intends to farm. No man 
needs a rigid training more; in no occupation may such training 
be made to count for more. A young man to be perfectly safe 
of success upon the farm should take a thorough under-graduate 
study, a year's post-graduate work, and then he should spend 
about three years as superintendent of a farm for some one else, 
or as a professor of agriculture in some land grant college. 
He, then, becomes a trained agriculturist, worth a respectable 
compensation whether in business for himself or on salary for 
others. What engineer, what lawyer, what doctor, or what pro- 
fessor of literature or art considers himself able to win success 
in his calling without an equal training ? I tell you, ladies and 
geiitlemen, that if the farms of the United States do not furnish 
worthy opportunities for men thus trained, the cause of agri- 
cultural education is well nigh hopeless. I am equally con- 
vinced that the farms of the United States do furnish such op- 
portunities. By no means all the five million farms of the 
United States, but a large enough per cent of them to furnish 
opportunity for all the gradutes that the colleges are likely to 
send out in the next twenty-five years. 

Men of capital and business judgment are beginning to 
appreciate that the farms of this nation are distinctly limited 
and their money is being rapidly invested therein. Already 
those who have to do with such things are finding that there is 
a demand for persons to make the capital thus invested 
productive. 

It is by no means asserted that a man must be college bred 



58 

to be a man of ability or a superiorly trained agriculturist. 
Such a claim would be both untrue and foolish. It is claimed, 
however, that a colleg-e training- is more necessary to a thoroug-h 
knowledge of his business than to a merchant, a banker, or a 
manufacturer. It is asserted, moreover, that a colleg-e training- 
is a short road to success. If j^ou are in Chicago and want to 
get to New York, you may take a train or you may walk. Under 
present economic and social conditions, you had better take the 
modern method even if you have to borrow the money. As a 
final word on this phase of the subject, let me say if you cannot 
afford to prepare yourself to be a farmer, do not farm. Enter 
some other business where the business itself will teach you 
success. Far better be a corner grocer or a street car conductor. 

As already sug-gested, numerous opportunities are now open 
to trained agriculturists aside from the business of farming. 
Of the 320 young- men mentioned a moment ag-o, thirty-six have 
g-raduated from the four-year courses of the coUeg-e of ag-ricul- 
ture during- the past six years. Seventeen are on salaries within 
their proper professional field. The averag-e leng-th of time that 
they have been out of colleg-e is about two and one-half years 
and their average compensation will be this year about one 
thousand dollars. The illustrations g-iven are from a sing-le 
institution and the particular examples are used because the 
information is at hand. 

The United States Department of Agriculture at Washing-- 
ton is also a g-ood illustration of opportunities open to g-raduates 
of agricultural colleges, both in the way of positions and further 
training-, — the latter quite as important as the former. Within 
the present fiscal year twenty-two colleg-e graduates have been 
appointed in a sing-le division of this Department at salaries 
ranging- from $480.00 to $1,200.00. As indicative of the rapidity 
of promotion, it is stated that ten recent g-raduates, who entered 
the Department last year and this year at $480.00 per annum are 
soon to be advanced to $1000.00, while within the year an equal 
numbei of similar promotions will follow. Another Division, it 
is authoritively stated, will need the coming- year fifteen to 
twenty young- men, preferably g-raduates of ag-ricultural colleg-es. 
The Department of Ag-riculture at Washing-ton is rapidly becom- 
ing- a great post-graduate school of Ag-riculture with scholar- 
ships and opportunities for rapid promotion. The Department 



59 

has just seat graduates of agricultural coUeg-es thus trained to 
Hawaii and Porto Rico to take charge of experiment stations 
there at a salary of $3,000.00 each, one of whom, Frank D. 
Gardner, was of the class of 1891 of the University of Illinois. 

After all, however, past and even present opportunities are 
important only as they indicate the future. The important 
question to a young- man choosing- a career is not so much what 
is the present opportunity but what are the future prospects. 
Not how well will he beg-in his career, but how well will he end 
it. The averag-e expectancy of a man who has reached the ag-e 
of twenty-one is forty-one and one-half years. The question in 
preparing- for the work of life is not alone, therefore, what is the 
opportunity today or what will it be four years hence when the 
young- man has completed a course in colleg-e, but what is it 
g-oing- to be during- the next forty years. 

For 250 years we have called ourselves an ag-ricultural people. 
While it is certainly true that we have been and still are, though 
in less deg-ree, an ag-ricultural people, our chief problems have 
not been those of the ag-riculturist. They have been chiefly the 
problems of the eng-ineer. We have, it is true, made some real 
prog-ress in the science of living- thing-s. Our animal and vege- 
table forms have been improved and thereby has the vig-or and 
healthfulness of the human race been increased. I would, in no 
way minimize the importance of this improvement, but, after all, 
it has never become a serious question. Much of this improve- 
ment has been unconscious and much of it has been done by 
people who found pleasure in doing- it. The larg-e problems 
that have required serious thoug-ht have been the mechanical 
means of subduing- nature, of planting-, harvesting-, manufactur- 
ing-, and marketing- the crop. At no time in its history scarcely 
has the nation suffered for food, clothing-, and shelter. At no 
time have these things been more abundant than in the past gen- 
eration. Nature has been so prodig-al that the surplus to the pro- 
ducer has been enormous provided only that the mechanical means 
could be obtained to handle her bounty. Harvesting- machinery, 
including- the cotton g-in, and steam transportation have not only 
unlocked nature's wealth but so cheapened the cost of produc- 
tion as to allow a larg'e part of the population to busy itself 
with other matters of the hig-hest importance to the present and 
future welfare of the race. Only during- the present g-eneration 



60 

have we known two of the greatest of these ag-encies, viz., the 
self binder and the transcontinental railways. The result has 
been that we of the present g-eneration have enjoyed comforts 
and luxuries beyond the fondest dreams of former g-enerations. 
At no time has our prosperity been g-reater apparently than at 
the present moment. However, ung-racious as it may seem to 
say it, it is to be feared that we have been so busy talking- about 
our prosperity that we may not have noticed the slight quiver 
that preceeds an earthquake. 

It has recently been my privileg^e to discuss at some leng-th 
the outlook for ag-riculture in this country, and were there time 
such an array of f ac ts and figures could be presented as to be, I 
believe, both convincing and impressive. Two hundred and 
fifty years ago, the Puritans started in to subdue a continent. 
"By 1800 the United States nowhere touched the Gulf of 
Mexico, and nowhere crossed the Mississippi," much less had our 
agriculture and our civilization reached these limits. By 1850, 
we had acquired our present continental territorial limits, 
Alaska excepted, but the great west and northwest was agri- 
culturally yet an undiscovered country. 

In 1875, Central Iowa, at present one of the finest agricultural 
areas in the world, was a wilderness. Since that time we have 
swept the continent with our agricultural operations. We have 
rolled up against the Pacific coast with such force that the 
shock has sent us thousands of miles across the sea. 

The elements that have entered into the problem have been 
a great fertile, treeless, and easily subdued plain, in a climate 
admirably adapted to cereal production, one of which, maize, 
produces twice the food per acre of any cereal known to the 
civilized nations before the discovery of America; improved 
machinery, including the steel plow, the mower, the self binder, 
and the thresher; transcontinental steam transportation; and a 
people of high intelligence and great energy. 

Do all the elements in the problem still exist? Let us look 
a moment. The animals upon the farms and ranches of the 
United States increased with such rapidity between 1875 and 
1892 that in the latter year we had not only the largest number 
of animals but much the largest number in proportion to popu- 
lation we have had in forty years. 

Now look at the other side of the shield. Since that time 



61 

the animals upon the farms and ranches of the United States 
have decreased with such almost lig-htning- rapidity that in 1900, 
eig-ht years later, we had not only less but much less live stock 
in proportion to population than we have had at any time in 
forty years. 

The increase in acreage of cultivated crops between 1870 and 
1890 was likewise greater than the increase in population. The 
increase in acreag-e of cultivated crops in the past thirty years 
is g-reater than was the total acreag-e in 1870. In other words, 
we have subdued more of nature to the uses of man since 1870 
than we had been able to do in the two centuries of our history 
hitherto. In the last thirty years, we have doubled our popula- 
tion and we have more than doubled the area of our cultivated 
crops. Shall we be producing- two blades of g-rass in the place 
of one that g-rows today when the population has ag-ain doubled? 
Or will our inability to produce the two blades prevent popula- 
tion from doubling-? 

It is not here asserted that the two blades of g-rass will be 
produced. I believe, however, it is possible to do so, but if it is 
to be done, it must be done in a vastly different way than it has 
been done in the past thirty years. The problem will be vastly 
different. The problems will be solved by those who have 
studied org-anic chemistry and the sciences relating- to life rather 
than by those who have studied mathematics and the laws of 
physics. In short the problems of the future will be the prob- 
lems of the ag-riculturist rather than, as in the past, the prob- 
lemes of the eng-ineers. The g-reat eng-ineering- professions need 
no defense from me and I will certainly not be misunderstood by 
this comparison as minimizing- their importance or that of any 
other form of useful knowledg-e to the welfare of future g-enera- 
tions. 

Is there any immediate evidence that the cultivated area 
may fail to keep up with the increasing- population ? The evi- 
dence is found in the statistics of the Department of Ag-riculture 
at Washington. The cultivated area has not actually decreased 
as has the number of farm animals, but the area has decreased 
in proportion to population about ten per cent since 1890 and is 
now less in proportion to population than it has been at any 
time in twenty years. 

But how can this be ? Reg-ard for a moment our unpat 



62 

alleled prosperity. If this is the effect of a decrease in acreag-e, 
by all means let us have some more decrease. The reply is 
simply that the seasons have been propitious. Not since the 
last half of the decade of the seventies has this country had 
such yields per acre as during- the years 1895-99. In no other 
five years since has the farmer received such larg-e returns in 
crofs for labor expended. A sing-le illustration will indicate what 
this really means. The averag-e yield of corn per acre for the 
five years, 1895-99 inclusive, was 3.2 bushels more than for the 
five years just preceeding- that period. This is an increase of 14 
per cent. This means an annual increase of two hundred and 
fifty million bushels of corn from the same acreag-e — if used in 
place of wheat more than half enoug-h to bread the nation. All 
the g-olden metal mined in the same period in the United States 
would not begin to buy to-day merely the increase in this g-olden 
grain, — the g-ift of prodigal nature. 

It would be indeed pleasing- in this connection to relate that 
this increase in yield had resulted from the investigations of our 
experiment stations and the teaching-s of our agricultural col- 
leges. To make such a statement would be to make the wish 
father of the thoug-ht. Doubtless such ag-encies may have mod- 
ified slightly and, when the teaching-s of the stations are put into 
g-eneral practice, will larg-ely affect the result, but as surely as 
the rains fall and the frosts come we may expect a series of 
unpropitious seasons. Some fine morning- we will wake up to 
find the scare head of our "No breakfast is complete without it" 
newspaper have been changed and that accounts of wars and 
industrial combinations have been relegated to the second pag-e. 

It is well known to scientists that the existence of all 
animal life and hence of the human race upon the g-lobe is 
dependent upon the fixation of carbon throug-h the influence of 
the sun's rays. It is also well understood that the nation's 
material prosperty is due to those mechanical inventions that 
have made available to recent g-enerations the stored up fertility 
of the soil and the stored up carbon in coal, oil, and g-as. How 
the conquest of Asia, Africa, and South America may affect the 
world at large no one can with certainty predict, but it seems 
reasonably certain that so far as the United States is concerned 
trapping- carbon or bottling- sunshine is to be a much g-reater 
problem than it has been in the past. 



63 

Does this mean that famine stares us in the face? Does the 
fate of Egypt, Greece, and Rome await us? Such an inference 
is by no means necessary. I am no pessimist. The human race 
has solved its problems as it has come to them with varying- de- 
grees of success, but generally for the better. During- the past 
two hundred and fifty years, this nation has solved some of the 
g-reatest problems of the race. The nation has greater problems 
to solve than it has yet encountered, but it was never before so 
well able to solve them. We need have no hesitation rbout our 
posterity. In all probabilities they will attend to tht^r affairs 
better than we have attended to ours. AH that is here asserted 
is that during the coming generations, men will be needed who 
have delved deeply into the sciences relating to life. The prob- 
lem will not be so much the methods of harvesting, manufac- 
turing, and marketing the one blade that now grows but rather 
what are the life processes by which two blades may be made to 
grow. To the men who have prepared themselves to solve these 
problems of life will come the opportunities of the future. 

It is curious to note how unconsciously conscious the nation 
is concerning this matter. In the very years when its soil was 
yielding her harvests most abundandtly, Congress passed laws 
which have started the most stupendous enterprise for scientfic 
reseach relating to the life and welfare of the nation that the 
world has ever seen. The federal government this year appro- 
priated for the work of its Department of Agriculture, including 
the state experiment stations, over four and one-half million 
dollars, to say nothing of the provision that is made for teaching 
or that is made by the several states to the same objects. Kven 
before there has come an apparently pressing demand for it, the 
nation is deep into the work. 

This, then, is the message which I bring to the young men 
of today, — the nation's workers of tomorrow. The Colleges of 
Agriculture are teaching the sciences relating to life in a practi- 
cal manner, so that one may become useful both to himself and to 
mankind. It is an education for agriculture, in agriculture, and 
by agriculture. It is a sound education worthy of the deepest 
intellect. The present and the future demand men prepared to 
solve the greatest of problems, — the problems which concern 
living things. Who knows why clay soils are sticky, and sandy 
soils are not? Who can answer this fundamental fact with 



64 

which the farmer is daily associated? Why can not a stalk of 
Indian corn be successfully matured in a pot? Whoever answers 
this, answer some of the fundamental but still unknown ques- 
tions concerning- plant growth. One acre in every three that is 
plowed in the United States is planted to Indian corn. If all the 
pig iron mined in the United States had been made into steel 
rails in the record breaking year of 1899, they would not have 
purchased the corn crop the same year. Yet each year one-fifth 
of this great crop is lost in the curing. He who gives the rea- 
sons and applies the remedy, will acqu ire fame and the gratitude 
of his fellowmen. Neither may the value be placed upon the 
results which may come from him who changes the chemical 
composition of this beneficent grain. Of two cows treated 
exactly alike as far as human endeavor is concerned, one will 
produce 300 pounds of butter and the other 150 pounds. He 
who solves this mystery will solve the mystery of the mysteries. 

Notwithstanding the improvement in labor saving ma- 
chinery, the greatest endeavor of the human race is still to pro- 
duce food. If a penny saved is a penny earned, what shall we 
say of him who makes the potential energ-y of this vast force 
more available. Three centuries ago, the yield of wheat in Eng- 
land is said to have been not more than six bushels per acre. 
The same soil is rained upon by the same rains and sunned by 
the same sun, yet to-day the yield is thirty bushels. Who in this 
country will point the way to sixty bushels of wheat instead of 
twelve or one hundred bushels of corn instead of twenty-five? 

The problems are unlimited but the greatest of them are yet 
beyond the vision of man. To him who has prepared himself 
to solve these life problems, will come the opportunities of the 
future. The world waits for him. Its rewards will not be 
meagre. 



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